Antimicrobial resistance is a major challenge in modern healthcare, particularly among the ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp.), which are responsible for many difficult-to-treat healthcare-associated infections.
In this project, the student will investigate clinical ESKAPE isolates collected from patients in Region Skåne. The project aims to characterise antimicrobial resistance and bacterial phenotypes relevant to persistence, colonisation and infection, and to investigate the diversity of clinically important isolates circulating in southern Sweden.
Depending on the scope of the project, the student may perform antimicrobial susceptibility testing, biofilm and bacterial growth assays, phenotypic characterisation of virulence-associated traits, and infection experiments using cell culture or Galleria mellonella. Selected isolates may also undergo whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatic analysis to investigate sequence types, antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes, and the distribution of clinically important bacterial lineages.
The project offers hands-on experience in clinical microbiology and antimicrobial resistance research and provides an opportunity to combine experimental microbiology with genomic and bioinformatic approaches.
Keywords: ESKAPE pathogens, antimicrobial resistance, clinical microbiology, bacterial pathogenesis, whole-genome sequencing
Interested? Please drop me an e-mail for more information!
Kristian Riesbeck – Professor, MD, PhD
Clinical Microbiology, Dept. of Translational Medicine, Lund University
Wallenberg laboratory
Inga Marie Nilssons gata 53
SE-214 28 Malmö, Sweden
http://research.med.lu.se/kristian-riesbeck
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6274-6965