Meenakshi Malik, associate professor at the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, was recently awarded a $480,000 grant to expand her study into Francisella tularensis, the bacteria that causes the potentially fatal disease tularemia.
The three-year grant was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) designated Francisella tularensis as a Category A bioterrorism agent, which “pose the highest risk to the public and national security.” The class is reserved for agents such as anthrax, plague, and smallpox.
Malik’s grant will help assist in discovering how Francisella tularensis stifles the immune system and what causes the body’s immune response to trigger in the event of exposure. In addition, the grant was made to determine if an effective vaccine against tularemia could be developed.
“The challenge with Francisella tularensis is that very little is still known about how this bacterium causes immune suppression,” Malik said. “As soon as we discover a few factors responsible for muting the body’s immune responses, we find out that this pathogen possesses multiple redundant mechanisms to circumvent our actions and shut down the body’s defense systems.”
“It has been challenging to understand these mechanisms, but we are making progress.”