Grant: Foundation Grant

Pathogens and their human hosts are locked in an evolutionary arms race. Humans are fighting back with better drugs, but the pathogens adapt to evolve drug resistance. As a result, the medicines become ineffective and infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of spread to others. We have entered in an era of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a phenomenon of serious public health concern. If nothing is done by 2050 it will have cost $100 trillion and 10M people/yr are expected to die. Our research program will address this issue. We propose to investigate at the whole genome level how a microorganism becomes resistant. In order to achieve this we will conduct high throughput sequencing of resistant microorganisms. We will complement these data with a series of powerful chemogenomic screens developed in the laboratory. These screens are niched and complementary, offering a holistic view of AMR. The output data will be integrated using bioinformatics pipeline to generate a complete map of genes/mutations necessary to achieve resistance. The role of these mutations will each be evaluated experimentally. This knowledge will be used to implement new diagnostics approaches using machine learning. It will also lead to novel drug targets against new promising drug candidates and to novel more effective treatments of infectious diseases.