Thursday 29 May 2025 2:00pm to 3:00pm
JDB Seminar Room, Trumpington site
About
Title: Understanding the drivers of antimicrobial resistance evolution
Abstract: The evolution of antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to human lives that is becoming progressively harder to manage. This is because there are many different mechanisms that allow bacteria to develop resistance to antimicrobial treatments. In this talk, I will explore the complex dynamics of genetic, phenotypic and mobile resistance mechanisms in microbial populations. I will show under which conditions we would expect genetic or phenotypic antimicrobial resistance to determine pathogen success and how this leads to different mutational pathways during chronic and acute infections. Further, I will discuss the genetic and environmental conditions that determine the spread of mobile resistance elements in heterogeneous bacterial populations. Overall, I aim to demonstrate the complexity of microbial resistance dynamics but that there is hope to understand them by studying their mechanistic interactions.
Bio: Claudia Igler is a Wellcome Trust Early Career Award Fellow at the University of Manchester. With a background in Mathematics (BSc) and Biomedical Engineering (MSc), her research integrates mathematical modelling and experimental biology to understand microbial systems. She completed her PhD at IST Austria with Calin Guet and Jon Bollback, focusing on the evolution of gene regulation in microbes. During her postdoctoral work at ETH Zurich with Roland Regoes and Sebastian Bonhoeffer, she investigated bacterial resistance evolution and the dynamics of mobile genetic elements. Her current research explores the interactions between mobile genetic elements and their bacterial hosts.
The seminar will be hosted by Dr Somenath Bakshi.
We strongly encourage you to attend the seminar in person.
You can also connect via Zoom: https://newnham.zoom.us/j/92544958528?pwd=YS9PcGRnbXBOcStBdStNb3E0SHN1UT09