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UTI Research Earns Goller Hartwell Fellowship

 

Carlos Goller, PhD, left, and Patrick Seed, MD, PhDCarlos C. Goller, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in Duke Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics-Infectious Diseases, was selected by the University as the 2009 Hartwell  Fellow and will receive $100,000 over two years for his post doctoral career development.

Goller is pursuing research on drug-resistant urinary tract infections (UTI). Most UTIs are caused by bacteria that have increasingly developed resistance to antibiotics used to treat them. Recurring UTI can lead to kidney failure, kidney scarring, and high blood pressure. Goller has helped to discover a compound that inhibits development of the protective capsule surrounding the offending bacteria. Without the capsule, the bacteria are more sensitive to antibiotics, as well as the body’s immune system.

“I’m working to target clinically important pathogens without disrupting the normal gut bacteria that we all have,” says Goller. “Urinary tract infections are a huge problem, especially in children and in the very old.”

Duke was chosen as a Top Ten Center of Biomedical Research by The Hartwell Foundation for the fourth consecutive year and met their stringent qualifying criteria to receive a Hartwell Fellowship. Goller was chosen by a Duke committee to receive the award.

Goller works in the lab of his mentor, Patrick Seed, MD, PhD, a researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics-Infectious Diseases. Seed says “new drug development for urinary tract infections is essential, and Goller’s work is a key part of that effort. He approaches science with passion and dedication.”

The primary mission of The Hartwell Foundation is to grant awards to individuals for innovative and cutting-edge biomedical applied research that potentially will benefit children. It seeks to inspire innovation and achievement in all programs it supports. Four scientists at Duke are currently supported by the foundation as Hartwell Investigators (www.thehartwellfoundation.org).

"The Hartwell Foundation provides individual researchers in the early stages of their biomedical research careers the opportunity to pursue their dreams by enabling them to pursue further specialized training as part of their career development,” said Fred Dombrose, president of the foundation.

Goller and Seed screened more than 2,000 compounds in search of an E.coli capsule inhibitor before finding one that works. “One of the next steps is to find the mechanism of this compound so we can target vulnerable components of capsule production for new therapies,” Goller says.

Goller earned an undergraduate degree in biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., and a PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics at Emory University in Atlanta. Other awards he’s earned include a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship; a National Institutes of Health predoctoral traineeship; and a Children’s Miracle Network Research Fund award.