Current antibiotics work by interfering with bacterial growth, which is a fine game plan… until it stops working. More and more, bacteria are finding ways around this approach, resulting in a huge antibiotic resistance problem. Dr. Jon Paczkowski may just have come up with a new defensive strategy and recently received a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate.
The award has already scored points, with findings published describing his strategy - not of interfering with growth, but rather the factors that bacteria use to communicate with each other to cause disease in humans.
Simanek KA, Taylor IR, Richael EK, Lasek-Nesselquist E, Bassler BL, Paczkowski JE. The PqsE-RhlR Interaction Regulates RhlR DNA Binding to Control Virulence Factor Production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Microbiol Spectr. 2022 Feb 23;10(1):e0210821. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.02108-21. Epub 2022 Jan 12. PMID: 35019777; PMCID: PMC8754118.
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences Grant Number R01GM144361-01
Other grants currently held:
- 2-year Cystic Fibrosis Foundation grant to study the progression of Pseudomonas aeruginosa pathogenesis.
- 2-year New York Community Trust grant to study ligand selection in quorum-sensing receptors.