Indiana U. researchers received a four-year, $7 million grant to identify and understand the microorganisms that can cause common bacterial infections in sexually active men.

The grant, from the National Institute of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, named epidemiologist at the IU School of Medicine Barbara Van Der Pol and David Nelson, a molecular biologist at IU-Bloomington, as co-investors.

“The basic idea is that not a lot is known about the microbiology of the male urogenital tract,” Nelson said. “The reason we want to look at the microorganisms that are there is that we think they may be related to STD risk.”

The study will look at the microorganisms from healthy young men, young men before they become sexually active and patients from a Sexually Transmitted Infections/ Sexually Transmitted Disease clinic in Indianapolis with hopes of understanding the cause of urethral infections in males.

“When talking about STDs it becomes a little bit sensational. It’s important to remember that we’re interested in understanding healthy men’s sexual health,” Van Der Pol said.

Van Der Pol compared their study to yeast infections in women.

In a healthy vagina, microorganisms like lactobacillus and yeast are there normally. When lactobacillus leaves, which occurs as a side effect of antibiotics, the yeast overgrows and a woman gets a yeast infection.

This study is trying to find microorganisms in men, much like the lactobacillus and yeast in women, and profile them to know how males get urethral infections and whether or not men with urethral infections are more likely to get an STD.

“We’re doing it all at once; we’re looking at the preventative side, trying to find out what is a healthy microbial community and then trying to understand what may be pathogenic, —what may be causing things that we’ve never understood before,” Van Der Pol said.

It is not known when exactly the study will produce results. A lot of data and results will have to be taken to completely understand the association between disease and microorganisms and later causality.

“We are looking for relatively rare events,” Nelson said. “I mean, people aren’t getting an STD monthly. Some of the boys we’re studying might get two the entire study and some might not get any.”

Nelson said their study is focused on men because STDs have to do with both men and women.

“In the past, a lot of people have focused on the microbiology of women, and the argument that we make is that it hasn’t been terribly successful in controlling STDs,” Nelson said. “On our end, we spend a lot more time looking at it from the male perspective because it’s overlooked, and when you look at it, what we do in men directly impacts women.”