{"id":4290,"date":"2024-12-12T13:58:57","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T18:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/?p=4290"},"modified":"2024-12-12T13:59:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T18:59:37","slug":"five-mcbb-faculty-receive-2024-kilachand-fund-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/2024\/12\/12\/five-mcbb-faculty-receive-2024-kilachand-fund-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Five MCBB Faculty Receive 2024 Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five MCBB Faculty are part of three groups to win 2024 Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering Awards. <\/span>The Fund, launched in 2017, has awarded $14 million to support projects that have advanced science, built collaborative structures for interdisciplinary research, and expanded funding opportunities. Learn about their projects below.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Photo:
From left: Alexander Green, Florian Douam, Wilson Wong, Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, and Mark Grinstaff. Photo by Eric Haynes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr. Wilson Wong<\/a> and Dr. Florian Douam<\/a> (BU School of Medicine), along with Dr. Alexander Green<\/a>, Dr. Mark Grinstaff<\/a> (BU College of Engineering), and Dr. Ahmad Khalil<\/a> hope to to pioneer a new tool for fighting future pandemics.<\/p>\n

About a year ago, Dr. Wong and Dr. Grinstaff discovered a novel way to modify saRNA, a breakthrough they\u2019ve since used to create a more effective COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with Dr. Douam. Combining this breakthrough with Dr. Khalil\u2019s nanobody discovery platform and computational tools designed by Dr. Green, the team aims to create scalable, cost-effective, and rapidly deployable solutions for viral prevention and treatment.<\/p>\n

Dr. Wong is leading the project with Dr. Douam; Dr. Green, Dr. Grinstaff, and Dr. Khalil are coinvestigators.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
From left: Mary Dunlop, Douglas Holmes, Joseph Larkin, and Harold Park. Photo by Jake Belcher.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr. Joe Larkin<\/a> and Dr. Mary Dunlop<\/a><\/span>, along with Dr. Douglas Holmes<\/a>\u00a0and Dr. Harold Park<\/a>,<\/span> are leading innovative efforts to address the urgent global challenge of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance poses a serious global health threat, with bacteria evolving faster than new drugs can be developed.<\/p>\n

The team’s project focuses on horizontal gene transfer and the single-cell level events that are involved in making an individual bacterium transition from being drug-susceptible to drug-resistant. Using optogenetics, they aim to trigger and observe this process in real time, offering novel insights into how bacteria transition from drug-susceptible to drug-resistant. Their innovative work could lead to groundbreaking strategies to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n

Read the full announcement here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Congratulations, everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five MCBB Faculty are part of three groups to win 2024 Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering Awards. The Fund, launched in 2017, has awarded $14 million to support projects that have advanced science, built collaborative structures for interdisciplinary research, and expanded funding opportunities. Learn about their projects below.   Dr. Wilson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[140745],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4300,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions\/4300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/mcbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}