Grant: Foundation Grant

Bacterial infections are major threats to human health. In the last century, antibiotics have served as our arsenals to fight bacterial infections. However, unfortunately, bacteria have since evolved resistance against virtually all known antibiotics, in several cases only a few years after a new antibiotic was introduced. We therefore urgently need to develop novel strategies if we are to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance, and to discover sustainable antibiotic reagents (i.e. for which resistance cannot easily evolve). I envision that I will lead the field to pioneer new antibiotic strategies to improve our healthcare system by employing "evolutionary approaches" to predict and prevent the evolution of antibiotic resistance. First, I will establish a platform to examine evolutionary potential and limit of antibiotic resistance using experimental evolution in the laboratory. Second, using laboratory evolution and engineering, I will generate novel anti-virulence reagents, e.g. enzymes to degrade cell-to-cell signaling molecules and therefore inhibit biofilm formation. Targeting such molecules is a potentially sustainable antibiotic strategy as it is unlikely that bacteria can easily evolve resistance. My research program will create powerful new approaches and tools to combat multi-drug resistant pathogenic bacteria. My strong expertise in laboratory evolution and engineering, and established collaborations with structural biologists, microbiologists and computational biologists will enable me to effectively tackle this challenge. My CIHR Foundation program will lead us to the development of novel antibiotic strategies and reagents to battle against antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria.