Assistant Professor of Biology Ankur Dalia will receive the 2019 Indiana University Bloomington Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.
The award identifies promising tenure-track faculty who have not yet been awarded tenure and provides resources to further develop their research programs or creative activity. It is sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.
Dalia and four other recipients will each receive a $15,000 grant to support future research. They will be honored at a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. April 23 in the Indiana Memorial Union State Room East. Those who wish to attend may RSVP on the Office of Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs website.
About Ankur Dalia
One primary goal of Dalia's research is to understand the regulation and molecular mechanism of natural transformation, a characteristic of bacterial species in which bacteria take up DNA from the environment and integrate it into their genome. Understanding natural transformation could lead to novel approaches to thwarting the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Dalia's research also explores the natural mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, the ability of bacterial species to share DNA with one another, in order to develop genome-editing tools that could have major implications for diseases such as cholera.
Dalia was recruited to join IU's Department of Biology in 2015 while serving in a postdoctoral position at Tufts University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his Bachelor of Science in microbial biotechnology from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania. Dalia has received extensive funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation in support of his research.
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