When looking out the window on a beautiful day, Elizabeth Stuart says, "I could be out there."

Instead she stays inside and continues her research that has the potential of making a difference in the health of residents.

Stuart is a microbiology professor at the University of Massachusetts. Besides teaching two courses a year, she is the director of chlamydia research and vaccine development at the university. Her focus is chlamydia pneumoniae, an airborne respiratory ailment that can be transmitted by droplets in the air and chlamydia trachomatis, an STD.

Sitting in her office with wall of books and journals adjacent to her lab, Stuart described what she does and the challenge of research with diminished funds and scientific community that can be entrenched and close minded.

The critical factor in chlamydia pneumoniea is that it makes existing conditions worse, such as late onset Alzheimer's, arteriosclerosis and asthma.

"It's increasingly being accepted that chlamydia pneumoniea is clearly associated with a number of chronic diseases that affect so many people. It turn out to be an associative disease that's costly to health care, nevermind human beings," she said.

Pneumonia is treated with antibiotics, but there is antibiotic resistance.

"It is unlikely to eradicate it with the methods presently used," said Stuart, who has been at the university since 1979 and has five patents on novel technology. But her research offers hope. She is working on a molecule that is a possible candidate for a vaccine.

The challenge is that research funding is becoming harder to come by. "It's not easy. federal government funding has decreased," said Stuart, who has published in leading scientific journals and present papers at conferences.

Another issue is that the people in the study and review process have a vested interest. "You need to prove the worth."

Stuart said she thinks the fear of competition or the challenge "to what they have been working on" creates a barrier to funding.

"People in science are not open to new ideas or thinking out of the box," she said. For example, one scientist in her field said chlamydia in blood cells "is nonsense ... it couldn't be."

However, her research shows it is. She has found that normal people carry chlamydia-infected cells in their blood in 25 percent of 450 samples. She received the blood samples through a collaborative effort with the Baystate Medical Center.

Another paper detailed research on pediatric asthma patients, which found enhanced chlamydia cells in the bronchial system. She said she tried to get funding to continue that project, but no one was interested.

"People don't look outside the box. If they do, they do it on their own dime."

The competition for grant funds is intense and research associated with big-name universities has a cachet.

"Once people move up the power echelon they are very concerned with competition or become closed minded. If I look for chlamydia cells in blood, it would never get funded," said Stuart, recently named a woman of distinction by the Girl Scout of Montachusett Council.

She gave examples of other researchers who had difficulty with funding or acceptance but persisted and have made a difference.

For example, the thinking was that it was a quirk that females heal faster from traumatic head injuries. And no one wasted time doing any study. Finally after 40 years of data it's true, a female hormone is efficacious and offers major healing of neural tissue, she said.