By Blake Jackson
Two researchers, Lori Huberman and Heather Feaga, have received major funding through the Schwartz Research Fund Visionary Grants to study fungal diseases and antibiotic resistance. Each researcher has been awarded $300,000 to support innovative work in life sciences at Cornell University.
The funding is supported by Joan Poyner Schwartz and Ronald H. Schwartz, who aim to encourage new ideas and support researchers, especially in the early stages of scientific discovery. Their contributions have helped promote research for nearly a decade.
“As scientists who worked at the National Institutes of Health for 40 years, we saw young scientists facing many hurdles,” Joan and Ronald Schwartz said in a joint statement. “This led us to endow the Schwartz Research Fund supporting faculty conducting life science research advancing Cornell’s founding principle of ‘…any person… any study,’ and specifically faculty who mentor our diverse students. We are pleased with the grants’ outcomes over the past 10 years.”
Lori Huberman will study how fungi detect and move toward their hosts. Fungi are responsible for about 3.8 million deaths each year and cause nearly 30 percent of global crop losses. Her research focuses on how fungi sense nutrients, which may help prevent infections.
“If a fungus couldn’t find its host, then it wouldn’t be able to infect it, and so maybe we could disrupt that sensing aspect,” Huberman said.
Her team is using a model organism to study fungal growth and behavior using advanced research tools.
Heather Feaga’s research focuses on how bacteria communicate when under stress. She studies how bacteria release signals that may help other cells survive difficult conditions, including antibiotic treatments.
“The biggest goal of this grant is to figure out what that exporter secretes,” Feaga said. “We assume that these molecules can then go and talk to other cells, so we’d like to figure out what those molecules are.”
Her work may help improve the effectiveness of antibiotics.
“One way a cell can save itself from antibiotics is if it stops growing, it can allow it to persist through antibiotic treatment,” Feaga said.
“It’s a high-risk project,” Feaga said. “We need to know what those molecules are; we just have no idea yet, so these funds are really important to us, because this is a new direction for my lab.”
The research highlights the importance of early-stage funding in solving complex scientific challenges. More details can be accessed through official Cornell University research updates.
Photo Credit: cornell-university
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