Dr. Petersen Receives Funding to Study Salmonella Antibacterials

Dr. Erik Petersen, Assistant Professor in East Tennessee State University College of Public Health’s Department of Health Sciences, has received $300,000 to study Salmonella sensing-based antibacterials for use in poultry.  The award is a collaborative binational grant with Dr. Erez Mills from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Rehovot, Israel.

Currently, among the food-borne zoonoses, Salmonellosis has become a frequent major public health concern. At the global level, the main source of Salmonellosis is consumption of contaminated poultry meat products. The current Salmonella control measures implemented in poultry production chains have met limited success due to various reasons. The detection of drug resistance in non-typhoidal Salmonella has also increased the concern in the salmonellosis control.

The study proposes novel strategies to control Salmonella prevalence and incidence in poultry with the aim of reducing poultry mortality and morbidity as well as poultry-related outbreaks and foodborne gastroenteritis. The new class of antibacterial compounds proposed to be developed are based on natural environmental signals sensed by bacteria and hence have no issues of toxicity, drug resistance, or mutant selection.

Dr. Petersen and Dr. Mills have expertise in Salmonella molecular biology, host interaction, and signaling in response to environmental cues. They began collaborating during their shared time at the University of Washington as postdoctoral researchers and hope this award can foster long term collaboration to carry out further research on Salmonella biology, their survival in the environment and in the host including poultry and human, and elucidating the mechanisms of their persistence and spread in poultry production.