VS Student Receives K08 Grant
By Liza Shevchuk
Sara Abboud, a Vision Science student in the Fleiszig lab, who is also an alum of the OD program (2023), has received a K08 grand from NEI. The K08 is a "Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award" program that supports basic science training. The grant dates are 7/1/26-2/28/31, and direct costs for the first year are $164,160.
Project Narrative
"Bacterial corneal infections are sight-threatening, cost the USA an estimated $175 million in annual direct health expenditures (2010 estimates), and are becoming increasingly difficult to combat due to the global antimicrobial resistance crisis. Previously, the Fleiszig group discovered that ocular mucins and a family of sensory nerve- associated ion channels both function to protect the cornea against bacterial adhesion, the latter displaying specificity for pathogen type (i.e. TRPA1 against P. aeruginosa, and TRPV1 against S. aureus) Here, I will test the hypothesis that the two nerve associated channel types differentially modulate mucin expression using novel methods that enable unprecedented detail, thereby improving our understanding of the ocular surface mucinome and its regulation during health, which could ultimately lead to novel mucin-based strategies for protecting against sight-threatening eye infections and possibly also life-threatening infections caused by the same pathogens in other mucosal systems."