Understanding the Impact of Environmental Structure and Sub-inhibitory Antibiotic Concentrations on the Emergence of Resistance

This studentship will develop novel understanding on the physical principle underlying antibiotic accumulation and efficacy against gram-negative bacteria. These bacteria constitute nowadays a serious threat to human and animal health due to the spread of antibiotic resistance. By developing a holistic approach encompassing biophysics, mathematics and microbiology, the student wiill be able to determine the pathways for molecular influx and efflux across the gram-negative double membrane. These pathways are likely to depend on the antibiotic employed during treatment of bacterial infection. Therefore, the student will investigate the transport of a panel of commonly employed antibiotics. The novel knowledge that will be developed in this project will inform the pharmaceutical company on the development of new drugs and on the repurposing of existing drugs by determine the pathways for the accumulation of these molecules in gram-negative bacteria. As such this research will have a beneficial impact on both our society and economy by, in the long term, permitting to lower down the cost of the antibiotic discovery pipeline