Graduate Student Urmil Dave Wins Prestigious Microbiology Award for Innovative Endolysin Research

Urmil Dave, a graduate assistant in Dr. Daniel Nelson's laboratory at the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and a PhD candidate in the Comparative Biomedical Sciences program, was awarded first place in the J. Howard Brown Outstanding Graduate Student Award by the Maryland Branch of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) at its annual meeting on June 16, 2025. 

Urmil’s winning oral presentation, entitled “Eradication of Group B Streptococcus from Cervicovaginal Models by ClyX-2: A Biofilm Targeting Chimeric Endolysin,” showcased a novel endolysin, ClyX-2, which offers a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics. This engineered enzyme specifically targets and kills pathogenic streptococci, bacteria that can be transmitted from a colonized mother to her newborn during childbirth, while preserving beneficial commensal organisms.

The project was a collaborative effort with Dr. Hannah Zierden in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland and Dr. Ryan Doster in the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville. Their combined expertise helped drive the development and validation of ClyX-2 using cervicovaginal infection models and clinical isolates.

The J. Howard Brown Awards recognize exceptional graduate and undergraduate students for their noteworthy contributions to microbiology. Awardees are selected based on abstracts submitted for the Maryland Branch’s annual meeting, with the top graduate and undergraduate recipients delivering oral presentations of their research. The award was established in 1954 in memory of J. Howard Brown of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who served as President of the Society of American Bacteriologists, the predecessor of the national ASM, in 1931. In 1934, he became President of the Maryland Society of Bacteriologists, which remained independent until it became an ASM branch in 1936.

In addition to this honor, Urmil recently received the Avrum Gudelsky Veterinary Graduate Student Award for Exemplary Research in Veterinary Medicine. This award, established by Homer and Martha Gudelsky in memory of their son Avrum, recognizes graduate students who excel in research methodology, scholarly publications, and service.

Urmil’s work reflects the One Health approach, bridging human, animal, and environmental health. Beyond maternal and neonatal human infections, he has developed endolysins to combat bacterial diseases in aquaculture, specifically in farmed striped bass and tilapia, and has designed enzymes to address bacterial contamination in the bioethanol industry.