Pitt Pediatrics congratulates William DePas, PhD, for his grant award from the National Institute of Health (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for his project titled “The impact of the Cystic Fibrosis infection environment on biofilm development of nontuberculous mycobacteria”. This grant period will last one year. 
DePas’s research is focused on characterizing nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in the infection environment and developing new therapeutic approaches aimed at specific in vivo bacterial activities. NTM is a dangerous, antibiotic resistant pulmonary pathogen that is outpacing research. It is hypothesized that the spatial and chemical environment of sputum from people with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) supports the formation of antibiotic tolerant, slow-growing NTM biofilms through regulated cellular processes.
With this research and related projects, DePas hopes to have a thorough understanding of the structure and prevalence of NTM communities during infection of patients with CF and insight into the mechanistic pathways driving biofilm formation and dormancy. This research will help physicians make more appropriate treatment choices for NTM infections.