Connecting the universe of microbial proteins to uncover functions for disease relevance
Official title: Connecting the universe of proteins to address annotation inequality in the microbial proteome
Funded at Baylor College of Medicine · NIH-11526380 · Data updated 2026-11-12
A project using computer analyses of many microbial genomes to link unknown proteins to known ones, creating a web tool to help researchers understand how these proteins relate to virulence and antibiotic resistance.
Quick facts
| Grant type | U01 cooperative agreement |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Baylor College of Medicine NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Houston, United States) |
| Project start | August 9, 2023 |
| Project end | May 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $189,916 |
| NIH project number | 7U01AI176418-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11526380 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Not applicable to patient enrollment; this is a computational, data-driven project.
✕Less likely to help
There is no direct patient participation or treatment involved in this project.
What this research studies
This project uses big data from microbial genomes to find patterns of coevolution between proteins with unknown functions and those with known roles. By quantifying these signals, the team will generate hypotheses about what unknown proteins do in bacteria. The researchers plan to build a publicly accessible network and user-friendly web applications to explore relationships among microbial proteins. The goal is to illuminate the dark proteome so scientists can better study disease-causing bacteria and potential drug targets. The work will advance computational methods and deliver practical online resources for biomedical researchers.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, it could speed up discovery of bacterial factors that drive disease and antibiotic resistance, informing new diagnostics or therapies.
How similar studies have gone: Similar coevolution-based approaches have yielded useful hypotheses about protein function in microbes, though applying it at this scale is novel.
Where this research is happening
-
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wright, Erik Scott — Baylor College of Medicine
- Study coordinator: Wright, Erik Scott
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.