Lab Projects

Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria

Bacterial infections have become a very serious issue of public health as a result of resistance developed or acquired toward almost all the antibiotics that are in use today. It has become clear that bacteria have the potential to develop resistance fairly easy toward an antibiotic due to the high mutagenesis rate of its genome and the genetic cross-talking among bacteria. Our focus is to understand the signaling mechanisms involved in induction of antibiotic resistance factors in pathogenic bacteria and especially in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This strain has acquired resistance to almost all the clinically used antibiotics including vancomycin, an antibiotic of the last resort.

Drug resistance

The phenomenon of bacterial and viral resistance has raised the questions: Can we inhibit bacterial or viral infections without giving rise to resistance. To put it differently: Is there a resistance-proof biological target? If this is possible, then what biological properties a resistance-proof target should have? Our group is investigating the answers to these questions and the solutions to these problems.