Help Us Fight Antibiotic Resistance!

Our Mission

The Virtual Cures stream of the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) at UT Austin seeks to discover new drugs against infectious diseases. The FRI engages undergraduates in authentic research experiences, which lead to increased student success in science while at UT. In our lab, they do this through drug discovery projects using both computational and wet-lab techniques as they build skills and contribute to the scientific body of knowledge. Led by Dr. Josh T. Beckham as the Research Educator in collaboration with Dr. Walt Fast of Pharmacy, students develop critical-thinking skills as they troubleshoot experiments and analyze data with the support of more senior, experienced peers (‘mentors’).
Our amazing 2022 ARI students excited for lecture with Dr. B.Our lab has the opportunity to educate students from diverse backgrounds and ages. Though we primarily work with undergraduate students, we have two high school outreach programs, the High School Research Academy during the Summer and High School Initiative year round. Recently, we received the 2023 Science Outreach and Communication mini-grant from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for bringing our outreach project to enrich the high school classroom and lab experience.

Our Research

Virtual

In the Virtual Cures stream, we use computational techniques to help speed up this process and more accurately identify new chemical compounds that can be developed into drugs. If we can perform drug discovery faster and more effectively, the lives of many potential patients could be saved while also lowering the cost of the drugs. Often, we will screen 50,000 to 100,000 chemicals at a time on a high performance computer cluster with 72 computing threads to assess their ability to bind well to crucial proteins of the bacteria and parasites.

2022 FRI students excited to be back in lab after a long summer break.

 Wet Lab

Once the most promising chemicals are identified from the computational work, the more labor-intensive work of validating them in the wet lab begins. To test if the chemicals actually bind, we need to do binding or enzyme assays. To do these assays, we need protein. But to make protein, we first need DNA. And so begins the long process of synthesizing our proteins for testing through the steps of recombinant DNA cloning, bacterial protein expression, purification, and characterization.

Our ProVDSer, AnnMarie, with the award she received for her poster at the ASBMB conference. gress So Far
Our stream has had tremendous success since our last Hornraiser in 2020, with over 30 students presenting their research at various forums and conferences. Multiple students have also published their research in recognized, peer-reviewed journals. We are so grateful to have so many students that have realized their passion for research during their time with us, and now are either attending graduate school or intend to do so upon graduation.

Our New Project

NDM-1 protein viewed on PyMOL, the visualization program we use in lab.

 

One of the latest threats to global health is New Delhi Metallo Beta-Lactamase (NDM-1): a protein that confers resistance to the most common class of antibiotics. When bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, treating infections becomes harder—increasing the risk of death, lengthening illness, and raising healthcare costs. As antibiotic resistance spreads over time, infectious diseases become harder to control. This can harm public health and make infectious disease outbreaks harder to manage. Our research focuses on finding new drugs that can replace current drugs that no longer work, helping physicians and scientists prevent the next epidemic, and manage current outbreaks. 

Freshman students making their own LB broth for cultures.

 Therefore, NDM-1 is a new target that we are excited to feature in our course. This research will contribute to the growing body of world-class research at our university. In addition to adding to the prestige of UT Austin, our project embodies UT’s core values of learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. We are so excited to begin a project that reminds us every day that what starts here truly changes the world.

The Needs of the Lab
These wet lab procedures require extensive equipment, reagents, and ‘human capital’. In particular, the Virtual Cures stream is requesting funds for:

ARI students analyzing their overnight culture for growth.

By giving your monetary support to the stream today, you will be making this project a reality and provide invaluable research experiences to our amazing students!