Courtney Reichhardt, an assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded a prestigious Maximizing Investigators' Research Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award is intended to provide stability and flexibility to early-career researchers who are studying biological processes with implications for disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
Reichhardt will use the award to pursue several projects on fibrillar adhesins, the proteins bacteria use to stick to each other and surfaces. The proteins enable bacteria to form biofilms on medical devices, a major source of hospital-based infections. "Despite their widespread abundance and prominent role in infections, we have a limited understanding of fibrillar adhesins," Reichhardt said.
