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By Tiffany Whitfield and Isaiah Hudson

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Curiosity is the engine that drives research amongst faculty in the College of Sciences, and uncovering new ways to fight one of the world’s most antibiotic-resistant pathogens is what drives Associate Professor Erin Purcell. At Old Dominion 91����Ƶ, Purcell's area of research focuses on signal transduction pathways in Clostridoides difficile (C. difficile) which is a human pathogen that causes damage to the colon and can be fatal.

Before coming to ODU, she earned a doctoral degree studying signal transduction proteins in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the 91����Ƶ of Chicago. She followed this up with postdoctoral research in the department of Microbiology and Immunology at UNC Chapel Hill. “When I was applying for faculty jobs, I was applying in both microbiology and biochemistry departments, and ODU seemed like a department where I could do my protein biochemistry in the bacteria I was interested in,” said Purcell. “And I thought I would have a lot of potential collaborators for the chemistry side of things.”

Purcell's research is significant because she is trying to design treatments which targeted bacteria cannot survive while protecting healthy bacteria. Purcell fosters collaborative research with ODU undergraduate and graduate students. “We’re studying pathways that contribute to its very high levels of antibiotic resistance,” said Purcell. “I’ve had several undergraduate researchers in my lab contributing to the broader project of looking at signal transduction pathways that contribute to antibiotic resistance in C. difficile.”

Research on C. difficile has provided a gateway for students in Purcell’s lab. Her students have done cloning projects to express proteins in E. coli to study them and see how they work. She has many undergraduates working on different projects under her supervision.

“I have had seven graduate students and we’ve all been working on broader project of studying nucleoitide signaling and stress resistance and stress survival in C. difficile. My graduate students have discovered that C. difficile has a novel mechanism for making alarmone signaling molecules. They have identified some points of biological difference between C. difficile and other bacteria that we’re hoping we can use to design treatments to be really specific against C. difficile and spare good bacteria in the body,” said Purcell.

Although Purcell and her team of undergraduate and graduate researchers are constantly working to contribute to understanding C. difficile, she also takes the time to appreciate the research process. “When a student I'm teaching in a course or training in lab has everything click into place and can see how two things we're talking about are connected or how something we're looking at fits within a bigger picture it’s great to be part of those moments of realization,” said Purcell.

Because Dr. Purcell's research on C. difficile requires special equipment such as an anaerobic chamber, she has been able to foster many collaborations while conducting her research. After joining ODU, Purcell was able to purchase the anaerobic chamber to be able to do research on C. difficile. Hers is one of the few research laboratories in the area that houses an anaerobic chamber. The anaerobic chamber is important for her research because C. difficile cannot survive in open air. Purcell has had the opportunity to work with other departments at ODU, Virginia Commonwealth 91����Ƶ, and Eastern Virginia Medical School. Collaborating with different organizations and universities has allowed her to cultivate meaningful connections.

In addition to her research on C. difficile and other scientific topics, Purcell teaches during the semester. She teaches intermediate biochemistry and rotates between various graduate courses that focus on signal transduction. This year she also taught a 100-level course that educated incoming first year students on chemistry research and careers.

As a woman in science, Purcell is pursuing research while cultivating and mentoring a new era of ODU scientists. Not only is she researching the subject in its entirety, but she is also trying to create new ways to target C. difficile.