The Lifesciences Magazine

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provided roughly $500,000 to researchers studying disease infection in bystander cells—those next to infected cells but not themselves—after they had received antibiotic therapy.  After receiving a R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health, Zhibo Yang, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma, and Laura-Isobel McCall, an associate professor of bioanalytical chemistry at San Diego State University, are teaming up again for their second major collaborative effort. Their first study examined the mechanisms leading to drug failure in cells infected with bacteria, viruses, and parasites. “Our new research originated from our previous collaboration. In our original work, we only focused on infected cells. But as we looked at the nearby cells, we noticed that their metabolism was getting closer to the infected cells. Cells that are farther from the infected cells didn’t demonstrate this chan...