Bloomington, Indiana – Deep in the basement of Indiana University Bloomington’s Biology Building, far from any ocean shoreline, a quiet and unlikely fight against antibiotic resistance is underway. Inside a carefully monitored tank of salt water, small corals glow under laboratory lights, forming what researchers affectionately call a “coral corral.” These fragile organisms are helping IU scientists explore new ways to stop dangerous infections without relying on traditional antibiotics.
The effort is led by Julia van Kessel, an associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, who established the coral lab in 2022 with support from the National Science Foundation. Though Bloomington is landlocked, the research taking place there is deeply connected to global health challenges. Antibiotic resistance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is responsible for an estimated 2.8 million treatment-resistant infections and 35,000 deaths each year in the United States alone.
Maintaining coral in a laboratory setting is no small task. Corals are extremely sensitive to their environment, requiring constant attention to water chemistry, temperature, and light. Even small disruptions can prove fatal. “A bunch of the corals died last week, which is why we only have three today,” van Kessel said. Her comment underscores the delicate balance required to keep the organisms alive long enough to study the diseases that threaten them.
That fragility is precisely what makes coral such a compelling subject for research. Van Kessel studies coral pathogens at a time when oceans around the world are experiencing widespread reef die-offs. Coral reefs play a critical role in marine ecosystems, acting as natural water filters, supporting fisheries, and serving as a source of compounds used in medicine. As reefs decline, the consequences ripple outward, affecting biodiversity, food systems, and human health.
Van Kessel’s work goes beyond coral alone. Alongside Laura Brown, a teaching professor of chemistry at IU, she co-founded a startup company called Quornix in 2023. The company focuses on a promising area of research known as quorum sensing, which examines how bacteria communicate with one another to coordinate behavior, including the decision to cause an infection.
At the center of their work is Vibrio, a group of marine bacteria that can infect coral, fish, shrimp, oysters, and even humans. These bacteria rely on chemical signals to sense how many of their kind are nearby. Once enough signals accumulate, they activate genes that allow them to infect a host.
“Disease is a nutritional strategy; Vibrio are trying to get nutrients from cells they’re infecting,” van Kessel said. “If you were a bacterium and your goal was to cause disease, would you do it by yourself or wait until you had a bunch of friends around to help you? You wouldn’t want to do it alone, because that requires too much energy.”
Rather than killing bacteria outright, which often drives antibiotic resistance, van Kessel and Brown are exploring ways to interrupt this bacterial communication. If quorum sensing is disrupted, the bacteria fail to recognize that they have sufficient numbers to launch an attack. They remain alive, but inactive, and the infection never takes hold.
This approach could represent a major shift in how infections are treated. By targeting behavior instead of survival, quorum-sensing disruption may reduce the selective pressure that leads bacteria to evolve resistance. It is a slower, more subtle strategy, but one that could have far-reaching implications.
Much of the experimental work feeding into this research comes from undergraduate students. Brown’s Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Experience course allows students to design and test chemical compounds that might block bacterial signaling. Each semester, new compounds are added to a growing library, and promising candidates are tested against Vibrio infections.
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“We’re teaching students how to do chemistry, how to do research, how to do biology, so we’re taking the slow approach,” van Kessel said. “But by doing that, we’re getting a lot of value out of the basic scientific research. We’re asking important questions without necessarily knowing what the application will be. But that basic scientific inquiry is important because it sets the stage for major breakthroughs.”
While coral disease research remains painstaking and incremental, Quornix has already seen meaningful progress in another area: shrimp health. Shrimp farming is a massive global industry and a key source of affordable protein for millions of people. Yet disease remains a persistent and costly problem.
Quornix’s general manager, IU alumna Chelsea Simpson, plays a central role in advancing this work. In addition to overseeing the company’s operations, she serves as its principal investigator, focusing on Vibrio infections in shrimp. Her background bridges both science and business, a combination well-suited to a young biotech startup.
Shrimp farmers often lose close to 40% of their yield each year due to disease outbreaks. The economic impact is staggering. “Infected shrimp cost the aquaculture industry around $4 billion a year,” Simpson said. “Farmers aren’t just losing out on profit from the devastated crop of shrimp; they’re also losing out on the resources they put toward setting up the ponds where the shrimp hatch.”
By applying quorum-sensing disruption to shrimp pathogens, Quornix aims to reduce losses without introducing antibiotics into aquatic environments. The approach has drawn significant attention, culminating in the company winning the 2025 Cade Prize for Inventivity’s environmental award as well as the Grand Prize. The recognition highlights both the environmental and economic potential of the technology.
Looking ahead, the company’s leaders hope to extend their therapeutics beyond shrimp to other aquaculture species, and eventually to human health applications. While those steps remain in the future, the progress so far suggests that a solution developed in a coral tank in Indiana could one day influence global disease treatment strategies.
Quornix’s growth is also being supported by IU students outside the sciences. Through the Kelley School of Business’ Certificate in the Business of Life Sciences, students gain hands-on experience working with real biotech startups. Each semester, senior lecturer George Telthorst selects a local company for his course, “The Life Sciences Industry from Research to Patient.”
This semester, Quornix became that company. Students in the class are tasked with developing solutions to real business and marketing challenges posed by van Kessel, Brown, and Simpson. The collaboration offers fresh perspectives for the startup and practical experience for students navigating the intersection of science and commerce.
Simpson, who completed the certificate herself in 2024, said the partnership benefits everyone involved. The students gain insight into the realities of building a biotech company, while Quornix receives thoughtful analysis and creative ideas at a critical stage in its development.
For van Kessel and Brown, student involvement remains at the heart of the project. Both credit their own undergraduate research experiences with shaping their careers and are committed to providing similar opportunities at IU.
“Research was a formative experience for me when I was an undergrad, and that’s why I made it a priority to bring it to more students here,” Brown said. “It’s fun working with students because you tell them that their experiments might save the world, and they get so fired up about tackling research problems.
“Some of these projects go on for years, so it’s inspiring to see that enthusiasm with each new group of students. That’s what we’re working toward and that’s what keeps us enthusiastic.”
From a small coral tank in a campus basement to award-winning startup success, the work unfolding at IU Bloomington reflects a broader shift in how scientists are thinking about disease. By combining basic research, student education, and entrepreneurial ambition, the team behind the “coral corral” is charting a new path in the fight against antibiotic resistance—one careful experiment at a time.
