Grant: DRA : Canada Graduate Research Scholarship - Doctoral Program (CGRS D)

Over the past decade, antibiotic resistance has become increasingly significant and is now ranked among the world's greatest public health challenges. Simultaneously, the discovery of new antibiotics is becoming increasingly rare, highlighting the limitations of traditional approaches in antibiotic research. Among the efforts to innovate these approaches, one component that is unfortunately too often overlooked is bacterial interactions. These interactions between microorganisms present at a same site have a drastic effect on bacterial physiology, and the project's hypothesis is that a better understanding of these interactions will lead to the development of novel antimicrobial strategies with unexplored targets. A striking example of environment that promote microbial interplay is the gut microbiota, composed of a multitude of microorganisms whose complex network of interactions remains poorly understood. To establish itself in the intestine, a pathogen therefore needs to enter close contact with this complex community of microorganisms. The project aims to develop innovative approaches to systematically characterize the interactions between Salmonella Typhimurium, a foodborne pathogen of great importance, and the human gut microbiota to gain a deeper understanding of their impact on Salmonella physiology and find new ways to target the pathogen in the context of infection.