Salve Regina University Professor of Chemistry Susan Meschwitz has received an NIH grant to research new UTI treatments, alongside undergraduate students. (Courtesy of Salve regina University)
A Salve Regina University chemistry professor has been awarded a major three-year National Institute of Health grant for her research to help better understand and treat recurring urinary tract infections in women.
The $387,466 in funding to support Professor Susan Meschwitz’s work is a first for the private Catholic university in Newport. The R15 grant provides funding for biomedical research to facilities with minimal prior NIH funding and will help train undergraduate students who will work alongside Meschwitz in her lab.
Antibiotics are the primary treatment for urinary tract infections, commonly called UTIs. Approximately 50% – 60% of women experience at least one UTI in their lives. A first course of antibiotics will effectively treat a UTI in 70% of women, but around 27% experience a recurrent infection caused by the same strain.
During treatment with antibiotics, some bacteria are able to survive within the bladder in a dormant state, then become active once more once they multiply to a certain level, Meschwitz said in an interview.
She studies communication between bacterial cells, or what she called “quorum sensing,” the process that lets bacteria gauge their numbers as they multiply by releasing specific “signaling molecules.” Her goal is to try and disrupt the molecular signaling that bacteria depend on to cause infections by creating similar molecules to “jam up that communication system.”
If the bacteria sense a large enough population, they will “attack and establish an infection,” while smaller populations of bacteria will enter a dormant state called “quiescence,” Meschwitz explained. In periods of quiescence, bacteria like E. coli — which accounts for around 90% of UTIs — resist antibiotics more successfully, Meschwitz said. Untreated UTIs can lead to repeated infections, which over time can threaten kidney health.
Meschwitz has researched antibiotic resistance for around 10 years in collaboration with two other researchers from the University of Rhode Island, David Rowley and Jodi Camberg. Her application for the NIH grant built on previous research from a 2021 grant that let her “establish the feasibility of this project and get some preliminary data.”
“I am so thrilled,” Meschwitz said. “I feel very fortunate to be able to have gotten this grant — not only what it means just to me, but what it means to Salve too.”
Meschwitz said she hopes the NIH grant will open doors for more research funding for more faculty at the university. “I’m so proud that I was the first one,” she added.
She also looks forward to training more undergraduate students to work in the lab, an aspect of the grant she believes will “highlight and emphasize Salve’s Mercy mission.”
“Threading through everything that we do, we try to make sure that all of our students get a hands-on learning experience with the focus of being able to give back and help people,” Meschwitz said.
“This prestigious national award to support Dr. Meschwitz’s work shines a light on the research environment here at Salve and the role our faculty and students can play to support the advancement of women’s health on a global scale,” Salve president Dr. Kelli J. Armstrong said in a statement released by the university. “Her project embodies what is at the heart of our mercy mission: hands-on learning experiences for our students with a focus on making a positive difference in the world for others.”
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