The evolution of multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens

The evolution of antibiotic resistance poses a serious global threat to human and animal health. The emergence of multidrug resistant pathogens is often driven by the spread of plasmids that encode genes giving resistance to multiple antibiotics. However, gaining a plasmid is not always beneficial for the bacterium because plasmids disrupt a wide range of cellular processes to cause large fitness costs. An exciting possibility is that if we understood how these fitness costs are caused we could exploit this weakness to select against resistance plasmids, reducing the burden of antibiotic resistance. This project seeks to understand the general rules governing how diverse resistance plasmids impact cellular processes to create fitness costs in an important bacterial pathogen of humans and animals. To do this we will use multiple cutting-edge omics techniques (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) and systems biology approaches in combination with experimental evolution and molecular biology. The supervisory team combines expertise in microbiology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry and mathematics. The project will provide a broad interdisciplinary training with both wet-lab and dry-lab experience, bioinformatics and computing skills.