Brent Beadell has won the 2024–25 Charles and Charlotte Krown Fellowship, the top honor awarded to graduate students at the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
A fourth-year PhD candidate in pharmaceutical and translational sciences, Beadell received the $10,000 prize for work examining the efficacy of antibiotics in treating Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia, a potentially fatal infection that is becoming increasingly resistant to antimicrobial therapies.
“Receiving the Krown Fellowship validates the importance of the research that we’re doing,” says Beadell, who will use the funding to further his investigations.
“In this new era of precision medicine, we need to update our methods for determining antibiotic efficacy for specific infectious diseases,” he explains. “We see really high mortality rates despite antibiotic therapy. So our research is addressing the urgent need for reframing antibiotic assessment to make better treatment decisions.”
Beadell conducts these studies as part of a team in the laboratory of Annie Wong-Beringer, associate dean for Research Affairs in the school’s Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy. Wong-Beringer is a pioneer in countering microbial resistance to improve the standard of treatment for Staphylococcus aureus and other infections.
“I really gravitated toward Dr. Wong-Beringer’s research when joining the PhD program here because her work is immediately relevant to the clinical setting,” says Beadell, who had long been fascinated by bacteria and host-microbe interactions. Her mentorship, he knew, “would allow me to align my passion for microbiology with helping people.”
Wong-Beringer noted in her support of Beadell’s nomination for the award that he “exhibits the rare combination of strong scientific intuition and acumen” with a “collaborative spirit.” She especially lauded his “willingness to help others reach their potential, even if it means staying long after hours to complete his own work.”
Beadell’s other honors include the National Institutes of Health’s Ruth L. Kirschstein Interdisciplinary Research Training Award. He is also pursuing strategies for advancing the use of organ-on-chip technology in infectious disease research. He recently completed a summer internship at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he evaluated the potential of liver-on-chip technology to reduce the drug-induced liver injuries that can result from testing new therapies.
Innovation runs in Beadell’s family. His late grandfather Charles F. Lombard developed the first crash helmet for use by test pilots and motorcyclists — and was also an alumnus of the Mann School.