Congratulations to Hervé Agaisse for receiving the Pinn Scholar Award for 2021 from the University of Virginia School of Medicine! These are competitive across the SOM and quite an accomplishment. Congratulations, Hervé!
The Agaisse laboratory studies the bacterial pathogen Shigella flexneri, which causes approximately 270 million cases of bacillary dysentery (blood in stool) worldwide every year. They have recently developed an infant rabbit model of bacillary dysentery that recapitulates all the symptoms observed in infected individuals. They intend to use the Pinn Scholar award to investigate how Shigella flexneri invades the colonic lamina propria and interacts with immune cells in vivo.