Indiana Researchers Use Coral to Fight Disease

The researchers of Indiana University use coral science to pick up the fight against antibiotic resistance and marine illness using new quorum-sensing research.

Indiana University Bloomington researchers are running science in an unusual environment by using coral they grow in laboratory tanks to research and treat antibiotic resistance. The project, headed by an associate professor, Julia van Kessel, investigates how antibiotic-free detection of bacterial communication would help in avoiding infections.

It works on the coral pathogens at a time when the global reefs are experiencing mass deaths. Coral reefs have a high sensitivity to the environment, and thus they are the best research areas in science on disease behavior and microbial balance. The coral lab, opened in 2022 by Van Kessel under the support of the National Science Foundation to closely monitor the health of coral, supports the long-term experiments.

Van Kessel, together with teaching professor Laura Brown, co-founded Quornix in 2023, a biotech startup. The company researches quorum sensing, this is a chemical signaling mechanism that bacteria use to coordinate infections. Researchers intend to prevent the activation of disease-causing genes in harmful bacteria like Vibrio by halting the process, and this approach avoids killing the bacteria.

This science-formulated technique has already demonstrated potential in curing the shrimp infections, which are a significant problem to the world aquaculture sector, which has been incurring billions due to disease every year. Undergraduate and graduate students play a central role in this process by providing compounds and gaining practical knowledge in applied science research.

Recently, Quornix won the 2025 Cade Prize of Inventivity for its environmental and health impact, meaning how basic science can transform into real-life applications addressing the ocean, food security, and even human health.