# Linking within- and between-host dynamics in tracking recent Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission

> **NIH NIH K01** · UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA · 2022 · $131,811

## Abstract

PROJECT ABSTRACT/SUMMARY
Marie Nancy Séraphin, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Florida (UF), Department of
Medicine, and a trainee affiliated with both the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute (UF-EPI) and Clinical and
Translational Science Institute (UF-CTSI). Dr. Séraphin has spent the last seven years, including two as a
postdoc, acquiring tuberculosis (TB) molecular epidemiology skills. She has experience linking genotyping and
whole genome sequence (WGS) with patient clinical data to investigate TB outbreaks. She has nine TB
publications, six as the lead author. In the short-term, this K01 award will provide training and professional
development opportunities in genomics and bioinformatics. Dr. Séraphin's long-term goal is to become a leader
in infectious diseases molecular epidemiology, focusing on TB. Environment: Dr. Séraphin will perform her K01
research with guidance from a multidisciplinary mentoring committee. Each mentor is a leader in their respective
field. The lead mentors are Dr. Marco Salemi, an expert in phylogenetic, computational, evolutionary biology,
and Dr. Kyle Rohde, an expert in TB genetics, pathogenesis, and diagnostics. Dr. Séraphin will also receive
formal training in genomics and bioinformatics and acquire research leadership and grantsmanship skills.
Research: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an incredibly successful pathogen, with an estimated 10 million
people newly diagnosed with TB annually. Rapid diagnosis, effective treatment, and contact tracing are public
health interventions that decrease TB morbidity and mortality. Routine strain surveillance by WGS of culture-
confirmed TB cases facilitates the rapid detection and control of outbreaks to prevent further transmission in
communities. More importantly, the rapid detection of outbreaks assures the timely identification of recently
infected contacts that can benefit from prophylaxis. Unfortunately, contact tracing activities are currently highly
inefficient as TB programs struggle to identify and target efforts towards the 20% of TB cases that generate
secondary cases (i.e., super spreaders). This critical public health function could be improved if we capitalize on
the extensive Mtb within-host genetic diversity (WHD) that can be profiled with deep WGS. Thus, we propose to
assess the utility of Mtb deep WGS as a higher resolution marker of person-to-person transmission and super
spreading. Specifically, we propose first assessing variation in WHD transmission (i.e., bottleneck size) under
diverse epi scenarios (Aim 1). WHD measurement is likely to be confounded by laboratory processing of
specimens and single genome/sample analysis. Thus, we will assess WHD measure bias by sputum
decontamination, subculturing, and sputum sampling (Aim 2). Finally, we will test in a pilot study the feasibility
of tracking WHD transmission to detect de novo Mtb transmission and superspreaders (Aim 3). The proposed
research and the training activities ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10447754
- **Project number:** 5K01AI153544-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
- **Principal Investigator:** Marie Nancy Seraphin
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $131,811
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-07-08 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10447754

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10447754, Linking within- and between-host dynamics in tracking recent Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission (5K01AI153544-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10447754. Licensed CC0.

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