What drives the evolution of antibiotic resistance? How does resistance spread in bacterial populations? Can we predict the evolution of antibiotic resistance? We are tackling these and other questions in the Evolutionary Dynamics of Antibiotic Resistance Lab, located at the Ramón y Cajal Institute for Health Research (Ramón y Cajal University Hospital) in Madrid.
Antibiotic resistant bacterial infections are arguably one of the major threats to human health. Our laboratory seeks to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that drive the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistant clones. Ultimately, this will allow us to develop new therapeutic approaches to tackle the evolution of antimicrobial resistance. We work on the following three highly inter-related topics (among others).
Resistance to virtually all antibiotics has been reported soon after their introduction to clinical use, suggesting that the apparition of resistance will eventually outpace humankind’s ability to develop new antimicrobial compounds. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new intervention strategies to counteract the evolution of antibiotic resistance. In the lab, we take advantage of recent molecular biology advances to develop new approaches to overcome antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations.
One of the main drivers of the antimicrobial resistance crisis is the emergence and global dissemination of epidemiologically successful drug-resistant clones. These high-risk clones have acquired certain adaptive traits that increase their pathogenicity and survival skills, including the acquisition of antibiotic resistance. We take advantage of cutting-edge genetic technologies to understand the ecological and evolutionary bases of high-risk clone epidemiological success. We believe that this mechanistic understanding will feed essential information for predicting (and avoiding) future expansions of antimicrobial resistant high-risk clones and provide a conceptual framework to better manage infections.
Mobile genetic elements play a crucial role in bacterial ecology and evolution because they mobilize key traits by horizontal gene transfer. However, the evolutionary impact of mobile genetic elements goes above and beyond being mere gene delivery platforms. Recent evidence suggests that mobile genetic elements evolve differently than chromosomes. Using experimental approaches combined with mathematical simulations and bioinformatic analyses, we try to decipher and understand the rules governing mobile genetic element evolution.
Meet our friends and collaborators!
Jerónimo Rodríguez-Beltrán, Javier DelaFuente, Ricardo León-Sampedro, R Craig MacLean, Álvaro San Millán.
Cristina Herencias, Jerónimo Rodríguez-Beltrán , Ricardo León-Sampedro, Aida Alonso-del Valle, Jana Palkovičová, Rafael Cantón, Álvaro San Millán
Jerónimo Rodríguez-Beltrán, Vidar Sørum, Macarena Toll-Riera, Carmen de la Vega, Rafael Peña-Miller, Álvaro San Millán
Jeronimo Rodriguez-Beltran, J Carlos R Hernandez-Beltran, Javier DelaFuente, Jose A Escudero, Ayari Fuentes-Hernandez, R Craig MacLean, Rafael Peña-Miller, Alvaro San Millan
Interested in working with us? We are always looking for motivated students and postdocs.
Please reach out to discuss opportunities!
Edificio de consultas externas, planta 0.
Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal
Crtra. Colmenar km 9.1 · 28034 · Madrid
Jose Luis Martinez—not active in social media ☹️—a legend of Spanish Microbiology will retire soon. His friends & colleagues will hold in Nov 28 a warm homage of a lifelong dedication to Microbiology & his many contributions to Ecology and Evolution of antibiotic resistance 👏
Fresh #preprint from our group on a nice #synbio tool working in P. Putida and C. necator, led by @FilFederici and Francesco Luppino. Have a look at yhe #pippothread below for more insights!
Plasmids are commonly view as burdensome. But maybe this burden can be advantageous? Check out this new review paper from the lab that investigates this further!!
For the past two years, we have been working on a novel approach to identify origins of transfer by conjugation in plasmids from any bacterial species.
We are thrilled to see this work now published in @NatureMicrobiol after thorough peer review!
