The Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics presents:
George O’Toole, PhD
Elmer R. Pfefferkorn, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Editor in Chief, Journal of Bacteriology
Dept. of Microbiology & Immunology
Title: To Build a Biofilm
Polymicrobial infections represent a significant challenge. For example, despite significant successes developing new therapeutics to treat the underlying causes of cystic fibrosis (CF) and substantial efforts to target the microbes associated with airway damage, infections associated with CF are still a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. A major cause of persistent, drug-recalcitrant infections in persons with CF is their polymicrobial nature. The ability of polymicrobial communities to cause disease, persist in vivo and withstand higher concentrations of antimicrobial agents is multifactorial and incompletely understood. Emerging evidence suggests that microbial community composition dramatically alters the ability of antimicrobial agents to eradicate infections - such interactions among microbes can result in decreased antimicrobial efficacy in vivo. Furthermore, polymicrobial lung infections are associated with worse prognoses. I will discuss our recent efforts to leverage large clinical data sets from person with CF to develop a new in vitro, polymicrobial community model, and describe how we deploy this model to begin to understand mechanisms of microbial interactions and community function. I also argue that our system can serve as novel antimicrobial screening platform and as “model” community to study microbial interactions more broadly
Host: Arthur Prindle, PhD
Refreshments will be served.
Ashley Martin
Email