Southern Miss Professor receives National Institutes of Health Grant | Schools

Dr. Shahid Karim, associate professor of biological sciences at The University of Southern Mississippi, has received a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the disease-transmitting agents present in ticks and other blood-feeding anthropod vectors.

Karim points out that the $439,500 grant will fund research that could one day produce a better awareness of how the vector antioxidant factors can be manipulated to prevent vector-borne diseases. Understanding the interactions between vector and rickettsial agents might help in developing strategies to combat anthropod-borne infections.

Rickettsiosis is a prime example of a vector-borne disease with considerable importance to public health. Typhus and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever are both diseases with Rickettsiosis characteristics.

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