NSF CAREER Grant awarded to Dr. Jordon Gilmore Associate Professor of Bioengineering Clemson University

Congratulations to Dr. Jordon Gilmore for receiving the prestigious NSF CAREER Award! The project is titled: "A Multi-phase Biosensing Approach towards Point-of-Care Evaluation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Virulence in Infected Chronic Wounds". The project is in perfect alignment with the ADAPT in SC NSF Award. Dr. Gilmore is a co-leader of the the Explainable AI-Enabled Biomedical Devices for Diagnostics and Planning Applications, and the leader of the Broadening Participation and Diversity project areas of ADAPT in SC. In addition, he serves as a member of the project's Senior Management Team.  

The primary motivation for this CAREER Award is the development of a strategy to quickly measure bacterial infections in chronic, non-healing wounds for the inhibition of antibiotic resistance/tolerance, which is both an important societal problem and of fundamental scientific interest. This work will leverage new biosensing techniques and artificial intelligence to find strategies to quantify and assess the progression of infections in chronic, non-healing wounds from Pseudomonas and other potentially resistant bacterial species.

The following scientific contributions will result from this work: 1) A directly quantifiable relationship between bacterial concentration (P. aeruginosa), QS molecule concentration (Pyocyanin and AHLs - 3OC12HSL), and stage of biofilm development; 2) Enablement of a flexible, tunable voltametric sensor that offers highly sensitive and specific electrochemical detection of redox species while being easily incorporated into wearable fabrics or wound dressings given its bio-textile design; and 3) The functionalization of nanofiber composite aptasensors, enabling generation of quantifiable electrochemical signals to greatly reduce the Limit of Detection (LOD) and improve specificity. This work addresses the critical challenge of quantifying species-specific signaling molecules associated with the progression of bacterial load (bioburden). The long-term importance of this work is an increased understanding of more effective treatment timing while reducing the risk of the development of drug resistance. Understanding the precise moments in which a bacterial pathogen may be advancing in virulence is important for any organism that may be infected by these bacteria, including plants, animals, and humans.

To learn more about this award, please click here.

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