Concordia College

Dr. Jennifer Bath Awarded Fulbright Grant

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

DR. MARK KREJCI, dean of the college and Vice President for Academic Affairs

(218) 299-3001

AMY KELLY, Media Relations director

(218) 299-3642

DR. JENNIFER BATH AWARDED FULBRIGHT GRANT

            The Fulbright Scholar program awarded Dr. Jennifer Bath, assistant professor of biology at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn., a Fulbright Grant for studies in Berlin, Germany and Brussels, Belgium this summer.

 The program topic, “Science and Society: The Impact of Science on Policy Formation,” will explore how Germany and much of Europe views the role of science in their societies. The team of Fulbright researchers will examine the factors that result in differing approaches to these issues and the challenges of working with different standards under a European Union policy umbrella.

            Bath was selected, in part, based on her work with regional bioscience industries and her research program on tropical helminth diseases – infections caused by parasitic roundworms that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract their host. Approximately 2 billion of the world’s most impoverished individuals are afflicted with one or more helminth infections. These diseases are part of a group of diseases called Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD’s) that have historically been underfunded, under-researched, and receive a disproportionately small amount lobbying on their behalf, especially in developed nations. Public policy and active lobbying for research funding play a large role in information dissemination for these poverty-promoting NTDs.  

Currently these diseases are treated after infection with anti-helminthic drugs.

 Bath’s team investigates the cellular mechanisms involved during the maintenance of these infections (with a particular focus on hookworm) in an effort to create an anti-helminthic vaccine to end the cycle of infection and re-infection by many of these roundworms.

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