An interdisciplinary research team, including faculty from the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI), is conducting research into antibiotic-resistant bacteria found on retail vegetables in the United States.
En Huang, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences, has received a three-year, $1 million research grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.
Huang and his team – which consists of Se-Ran Jun, Ph.D., an assistant professor in DBMI, and post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UAMS, Sun Hee Moon, Ph.D.; along with Xinhui Li, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse; Erin DiCaprio, Ph.D., of the University of California-Davis; and Xu Yang, Ph.D., of California State Polytechnic University-Pomona – will investigate why some bacteria isolated from retail vegetables in the United States are resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics. The aforementioned class of antibiotics – considered the most important classes of antibiotics – are used in the management and treatment of bacterial infections.
Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.