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Graduate Students Publish Research on Staph Infections

Tue, 09/30/2014 - 10:04am | By: Jamie Allen

University of Southern Mississippi graduate students Dhritiman Samanta, left, and Gyan Sahukhal have conducted extensive research to find a cure for Staph infections. (Submitted photo)

With approximately 86,000 cases and 11,000 deaths per year in the United States, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), better known as Staph infection, is a threat that graduate students at the University of Southern Mississippi have taken to task.

With funding from Mississippi INBRE, Gyan Sahukhal and Dhritiman Samanta, graduate students working under Southern Miss Professor Mohamed Elasri, director of Mississippi INBRE, have been able to publish their research on Staph infections. This research is a key step in finding a cure for Staph infections.

“Staph lives in our nasal passages and on our skin, but when it gets inside our bodies it can infect our bones, lungs, skin, heart or blood. These infections can be very dangerous,” Sahukhal noted.

With a focus on the problem of antibiotic-resistant staph infections, Sahukhal and Samanta went to work to solve the problem.

“Staph infections have become an increasing problem in public health. Our research was targeted toward discovering the cause of staph's resistance to antibiotics,” Samanta said.

After four years of research, the duo discovered a gene in Staph that plays a role in its resistance to antibiotics. This discovery has the potential to fuel further research on the topic and eventually find a drug against the gene that will cause Staph to be more sensitive to antibiotics. The Southern Miss researchers have recently published their findings in two scientific journals, the BMC Microbiology and the Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 

"We are excited about the discovery of this gene in staph because it plays a key role in the infectious process and antibiotic resistance. This gene is a promising target for new therapies against staph infections,” Elasri stated. “As most people know, one of the biggest public health problems we face is antibiotic resistance such as we see with MRSA. Our research is geared towards addressing this problem. We feel very good about the prospects for our gene as a target that can be used to treat staph infections.”

Mississippi INBRE is a statewide program that is funded by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Their mission is to enhance the biomedical foundation in Mississippi and to reach out to Mississippians in order to improve health throughout the state.

Mississippi INBRE seeks to engage talented researchers and students in biomedical research projects that will increase the state's research competitiveness as well as impact the health of citizens of Mississippi.

For more information about Mississippi INBRE, check out their website, msinbre.org.