Jörn Coers, PhD, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine, has received the MERIT Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This long-term grant recognizes exceptional researchers whose work shows significant promise.
Research in the Coers lab is dedicated to uncovering how the immune system responds to bacterial threats and how these pathogens outsmart the body’s defenses to cause infection.
The awarded project focuses on Chlamydia trachomatis, the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection. The team discovered new mechanisms through which Chlamydia hides within a specialized compartment inside human cells, making it difficult for the immune system to recognize and destroy it.
A key focus is on how Chlamydia uses the protein GarD (gamma resistance determinant) as an “invisibility cloak,” according to Coers, to hide its replicative niche, an intracellular structure called an inclusion, from the immune system. This cloak allows the infection to persist undetected for months.
Coers, a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Department of Integrative Immunobiology, aims to understand how Chlamydia evades the immune system as a step towards the development of new treatments and vaccines.
He earned his PhD at the University of Basel in Switzerland and also directs the Center of Host-Microbial Interactions at Duke.