Two additional research teams win seedling grants

The Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health) has recently awarded seedling grants to two additional research teams from the Texas A&M University College of Medicine.

These two additional grants add to the original list of seedling grants that have been funded by Texas A&M Health and were announced earlier in May.

The purpose of the year-long grant is to encourage the development of novel, high-impact research projects that have the potential to become externally funded research programs.

The two additional research proposals that College of Medicine faculty will be working include:

Lymphatic system research

David Zawieja, PhD, Regents professor and Department Head of the Department of Medical Physiology, and Walter Cromer, PhD, assistant research scientist in the Department of Medical Physiology

The manner of the development of SARS-CoV-2 during the early phases of infection is widely unclear. This research study aims to demonstrate the exploitation of lymphatics as a mechanism for the rapid virus dissemination in the early infection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. With this research, the team hopes to gain a better understanding of the immunological challenges that the SARS-CoV-2 infection creates due to lymphatic/nodal damage.

Sepsis research

Zhilei Chen, associate professor in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology and Magnus Höök, PhD, Regents and distinguished professor at the Center for Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the result of infection can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death. The goal of this study is to develop novel biologic therapeutics to treat sepsis through the combined use of designed ankyrin repeat protein (DARPin) technology and verified drug targets on Staphylococcus aureus. Ultimately, this research hopes that DARPin will provide a novel and effective therapy for treating sepsis.