Congratulations to Alba, who was awarded an R21 Small Grant for New Investigators to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research from the NIH – NIDDK.

Alba’s work will focus on developing a fluorescence lifetime imaging method to evaluate colon inflammation in living mice. Here is a description that will give you a broader idea on the scope of her project:

Novel imaging technologies are needed to facilitate the study and visualization of early and low-grade gastrointestinal (GI) inflammation. Our proposal aims to establish fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIm) as a nondestructive and label-free research tool to visualize and quantify the tissue-level response to microbiome-mediated inflammation using the in vivo murine colon as a study model. The long-term goal of this research seeks to translate FLIm into a clinical tool for the early diagnosis of human GI inflammatory diseases.