Daren Knoell
University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE·Microbiology & Immunology
Pneumonia caught outside the hospital, known as community acquired pneumonia, is a leading cause of illness and death worldwide, and the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is its most common cause in the United States. Much of the risk falls on people whose immune defenses have weakened.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Physiology
Pharmacology
- Topics
pneumonia
pneumococcus
zinc
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Determine how loss of the zinc transporter ZIP8 alters the makeup of myeloid immune cells in the lung in mice, and what that means for clearing Streptococcus pneumoniae and for survival.
- Define how ZIP8 shapes the function of lung macrophages and dendritic cells, the cells that engulf bacteria and present them to the adaptive immune system.
- Test whether dietary zinc supplementation improves the outcome of pneumococcal pneumonia in mice with disrupted zinc handling, using a dietary zinc restriction model.
- Test the hypothesis that ZIP8 maintains a favorable balance between innate and adaptive immunity in the infected lung, using two new ZIP8 knockout mouse models.
More about the research
One overlooked factor is the trace mineral zinc. The immune system needs zinc to work properly, low dietary zinc intake is common in vulnerable groups, zinc-deficient people get pneumonia more often, and zinc supplements lower that risk. How zinc actually shapes lung defense is not well understood.
Why it matters
Bacterial pneumonia affects millions of people worldwide and is especially dangerous for older and immune-compromised populations, among whom low dietary zinc is common. Identifying how zinc and the transporter ZIP8 govern lung defense could reveal dietary and genetic markers for who is most at risk, and may support micronutrient or genetic screening and new prevention strategies. The same pathways could prove relevant to defense against other pathogens.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Amali Samarasinghe
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how eosinophils, allergy-associated white blood cells, take up and kill Streptococcus pneumoniae inside and outside the cell, and how taking up the bacteria changes the eosinophils' physiology and features.
Samithamby Jeyaseelan
Louisiana State University, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how the antioxidant regulator Nrf2 affects survival, bacterial clearance and neutrophil accumulation and function during carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) pneumonia in mice.
Michael Johnson
University of Arizona, AZ·Microbiology & Immunology
Measure how Streptococcus pneumoniae changes its gene activity and metabolite levels across a range of copper and zinc concentrations, using transcriptomics and metabolomics in a minimal, host-like growth medium.
The school
University of Nebraska Medical Center: 20 labs on PI Pages, $657M a year on research, 82 research doctorates a year.
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