• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Biomedical sciences researcher gets $4.9 million federal grant to study ways to block gonorrhea infection

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
September 30, 2022
in Health
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Dr. Cynthia Nau Cornelissen
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

ATLANTA—Dr. Cynthia Nau Cornelissen, Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for Translational Immunology in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, has received a five-year, $4.9 million federal grant to study ways to block the bacterial pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae from causing gonorrhea, a common sexually transmitted infection.

Dr. Cynthia Nau Cornelissen

Credit: Georgia State University

ATLANTA—Dr. Cynthia Nau Cornelissen, Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for Translational Immunology in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, has received a five-year, $4.9 million federal grant to study ways to block the bacterial pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae from causing gonorrhea, a common sexually transmitted infection.

The grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will explore N. gonorrhoeae metal transporters that disrupt nutritional immunity, a human process that prevents microbial growth and infectivity by limiting the availability of critical nutrients, such as the metals iron and zinc, and starving invading pathogens.

This project will test whether N. gonorrhoeae disrupts nutritional immunity by deploying outer membrane transporters that bind to and relieve the host’s metal-binding proteins of the metal cargo they have sequestered. The researchers propose that N. gonorrhoeae can cause gonorrhea infection by hijacking human immunity proteins and stripping them of metals.

Gonorrhea, rates of which are increasing worldwide, is a public health threat because of growing incidence of antimicrobial drug resistance, rising treatment costs and lack of a protective vaccine. Many cases in women are asymptomatic, and if left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to serious health consequences, including pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility and life-threatening conditions including disseminated gonococcal infections.

“We hypothesize that these metal transporters enable N. gonorrhoeae to overcome the growth inhibitory effects of the innate immunity proteins produced during inflammation,” Cornelissen said. “These studies are significant because knowing how N. gonorrhoeae acquires essential metals like zinc and iron from the human host opens new opportunities for developing new therapeutics against ‘superbug’ strains, whether they be targets for a protective vaccine or small molecule inhibitors of crucial transporters.”

The proposed studies will shed new light on fundamental pathogenic mechanisms used by N. gonorrhoeae to overcome nutritional immunity imposed by the human host. The project seeks to understand the structure and function relationships in four outer membrane transporters produced by N. gonorrhoeae during infection of relevant host cells. 

The researchers will explore whether inhibitory compounds or monoclonal antibodies block these critical metal acquisition functions, which can point to new therapies against this common infectious disease.

For more information about the grant, visit https://reporter.nih.gov/search/_7BdQ7MAZkqTuw40zk4quA/project-details/10585577.



Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Graphene Oxide Boosts Nanoimplant Vision in Retinitis Pigmentosa

October 1, 2025

Exploring Alarm and Compassion Fatigue in ICU Nurses

October 1, 2025

Cost-Effectiveness of Congenital Chagas Screening Explored

October 1, 2025

Amino Acid Gene Variants Linked to Thyroid Cancer Risk

October 1, 2025

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    89 shares
    Share 36 Tweet 22
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    74 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • How Donor Human Milk Storage Impacts Gut Health in Preemies

    62 shares
    Share 25 Tweet 16
  • Scientists Discover and Synthesize Active Compound in Magic Mushrooms Again

    57 shares
    Share 23 Tweet 14

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Clinicopathological and Molecular Insights into Synovial Sarcoma

Graphene Oxide Boosts Nanoimplant Vision in Retinitis Pigmentosa

Transcriptomics and Metabolomics Reveal Mycophenolic Acid’s Bladder Cancer Attack

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 59 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.