Gaddy is a leading researcher in bacterial pathogenesis, innate immunity and reproductive immunology.

Treatment options are limited for the more than 500,000 people in the U.S. who are diagnosed annually with C. diff infections, but researchers are working on potential vaccines, therapeutic antibodies and — most recently — nanobodies, to prevent and treat C. diff infections.

New study represents a major step forward for vaccine development for C. diff, the leading cause of health care- and antibiotic-associated infection.

There currently are no approved treatments or vaccines to protect against the infection, which can cause internal bleeding, organ failure, and in roughly 50% of cases, death.

The public health burden of long COVID is estimated to be the largest seen from an emerging disease in the past century, yet there remain no effective interventions.

In a study of children with symptomatic or asymptomatic C. diff, symptom status loomed as the strongest association with differences in gut microbial abundance and diversity.

The infection can result from inhaling spores of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum, which grows in soil throughout Middle Tennessee, especially in soil contaminated with bird or bat droppings. Previously, blood samples had to be sent to a reference lab in Utah.