The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded an R21 grant titled “Regulation of Candida albicans Central Venous Catheter Biofilms by Transcription Factor Networks” to Priya Uppuluri, PhD, investigator at The Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation for $450,000. The project will investigate the molecular mechanisms that enable C. albicans to form drug-resistant biofilms on central venous catheters (CVCs), a major source of life-threatening bloodstream infections in hospitalized and immunocompromised patients.
Dr. Uppuluri’s laboratory has developed a clinically relevant bloodstream infection model demonstrating that biofilms growing on intravascular catheters are governed by fundamentally different regulatory mechanisms than previously recognized. These findings challenge long-standing paradigms in the field and have uncovered novel transcription factors that may uniquely drive fungal persistence during bloodstream infection.
The project will define the transcriptional networks that control biofilm formation in the bloodstream and identify new molecular targets for therapies to prevent and treat catheter-associated fungal infections. By revealing how fungal biofilms develop under clinically relevant conditions, this work has the potential to reshape our understanding of fungal pathogenesis and guide the development of more effective antifungal strategies.