Dr. Valafar is awarded a $640,241 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the molecular basis for drug resistance in tuberculosis. The grant’s title is “Evolutionary and Functional Significance of Novel Mutations in MDR/XDR tuberculosis”. Dr. Valafar’s laboratory studies the pathogenesis of drug resistance in infectious diseases, especially the role of genetic dark matter in emergence of resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.