IMB Friday Seminar Series: : Understanding and reversing the evolution of antimicrobial resistance: making superbugs less super
Event Details
- Date:
- Friday, 14 June 2019 - Friday, 14 June 2019
- Time:
- 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
- Room:
- Auditorium, Level 2 (Building 80) 2.17
- UQ Location:
- Queensland Bioscience Precinct (St Lucia)
- URL:
- http://events.imb.uq.edu.au/index.php
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Dr Jane Ilsley
- Phone:
- 62132
- Email:
- communications@imb.uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Event Description
- Full Description:
- TITLE: Understanding and reversing the evolution of antimicrobial resistance: making superbugs less super
SPEAKER: Professor Trevor Lithgow, Monash University
The rise of antimicrobial resistance in microbes of all types:bacteria, fungi and parasites, is a global phenomenon and has been described as a slow-moving tsunami. Currently there is no natural barrier to protect us from this disaster. In the case of antimicrobial resistant bacteria, we have come to understand much about how the over-use of antibiotics in agriculture and hospitals has selected for antibiotic-resistant 'superbug' strains of bacteria, and why it is that these become the dominant forms in these environments. Klebsiella pneumoniae is an important example of how human behaviour creates such superbugs. Previously most at home in soils and waterways, it has evolved from being a readily treatable accidental pathogen to a major cause of death in a broad sweep of the world across Pakistan, India and China. We are working with partners in China to characterize and understand drug-resistant forms of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Klebsiella pseudopneumoniae in a comprehensive collection of isolates from across the past 15 years. We are working towards interventions to reverse the drug-resistant phenotypes in these bacteria, to allow extant drugs to be more effective in the clinic. Our understanding of the biology of Klebsiella also suggests means to cleanse built environment of hospitals and food-processing factories of this now dangerous pathogen.
Directions to UQ
- Google Map:
-
- Directions:
- St Lucia Campus | Gatton campus.
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