C. Todd French, assistant professor of biology and leader of Northern Arizona University’s new COVID-19 Testing Service Center (CTSC), is working with scientists at Vault Pharma, an emerging biotechnology company, to test candidate vaccines against the novel coronavirus. Through a multi-institutional public-private partnership linking the company with UCLA, NAU and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, French is part of a collaborative team advancing a vaccine that has… Read more
Pathogen and Microbiome Institute
Scientists collaborate across NAU’s research centers to create new physics-based technology for COVID-19 detection
One of the most challenging aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the lack of testing needed to detect and trace infections—and without adequate testing, government officials do not have the data they need to make the best possible decisions in the interest of public health.
In addition to being in short supply, most tests… Read more
PMI’s undergraduate research program at NAU prepares students for real-world challenges with hands-on experience studying diseases—including COVID-19
At a time when the world is gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for trained student researchers in the biomedical field may have never been greater. That’s why the unique undergraduate student research training program offered by Northern Arizona University’s Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI), established through the leadership of… Read more
NAU and Purdue experts apply microbiome research to agricultural science to help increase crop yield
The global demand and consumption of agricultural crops is increasing at a rapid pace. According to the 2019 Global Agricultural Productivity Report, global yield needs to increase at an average annual rate of 1.73 percent to sustainably produce food, feed, fiber and bioenergy for 10 billion people in 2050. In the US, however, agricultural productivity is struggling to keep… Read more
NAU team awarded prestigious Chan Zuckerberg grant to build global community around bioinformatics software
Even as NAU associate professor Greg Caporaso and his team were putting the final touches on their QIIME 2™ paper, published earlier this year, he was already planning several major enhancements to this open source and free bioinformatics software that enables scientists to perform microbiome analysis from increasingly large amounts… Read more
NAU scientist collaborates on major genetic study of white-nose syndrome in bats
Often maligned and largely misunderstood throughout history, bats have more recently been recognized for the important role they play in ecosystems all over the world, pollinating flowers, dispersing seeds and controlling pests by eating insects.
But many North American species are now threatened by white-nose syndrome (WNS), a deadly fungal disease affecting millions of bats, primarily in the eastern US. The Ecology and… Read more