# Clinical Isolate Core (Core B)

> **NIH NIH U19** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $380,655

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The overall objective of the Clinical Isolate Core (Core B) is to provide access to a robust collection of clinical
bacterial isolates and a standardized and experimentally controlled platform for evaluating antibiotic
heteroresistance (HR) for the Heteroresistance Interdisciplinary Research Unit (HR-IRU). Core B is therefore
essential to the overall success of the HR-IRU program. To accomplish Core goals, we have assembled a
multidisciplinary team including an infectious disease clinician (Jacob), a research scientist (Satola), a board-
certified medical microbiologist (Burd) and an epidemiologist (Tunali) with expertise vast areas of antibiotic
resistance. For Core B to enable successful completion of the research projects and advance our understanding
of antibiotic HR we propose three specific aims. 1) To provide access to clinical bacterial isolate. Isolates
(Enterobacterales and Acinetobacter baumanii complex) will be collected as part of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention's (CDC) Georgia Emerging Infections Program (EIP) Multi-site Gram-negative
Surveillance Initiative (MuGSI), Emory University's Investigational Clinical Microbiology Core (ICMC)
biorepository, and Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden. 2) To profile clinical bacterial isolates for HR. We will
test 500 bacterial isolates per year from bloodstream, urine, and respiratory clinical infections: 200 multi-drug
resistant organisms (MDRO) from the Georgia EIP; 100 non-MDRO from the ICMC and 200 predominately
susceptible isolates from Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden. Each isolate will be tested for HR to
approximately 20 antibiotics using population analysis profiling (PAP), the gold standard for HR. 3) To perform
epidemiological analyses revealing the prevalence, type and trends of HR. We will establish the prevalence of
HR from the 2500 isolates tested in aim 2. We will perform comprehensive descriptive epidemiology on the
clinical and laboratory characteristics of isolates with HR and compare those to isolates without HR. Core B will
be conducted in the laboratories of the Georgia EIP and Emory University's ICMC, which have extensive
expertise in active-population based surveillance and studies of HR. The Core leadership will work closely with
the HR-IRU program directors/PIs and project leaders to ensure that the needs of all projects are rigorously met
in a reliable, reproducible and timely manner.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10170968
- **Project number:** 1U19AI158080-01
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Jesse Thomas Jacob
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $380,655
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-03-05 → 2026-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10170968

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10170968, Clinical Isolate Core (Core B) (1U19AI158080-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10170968. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*