What drives the evolution of antibiotic resistance? How resistance spreads 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 for 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 suggest 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!
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Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal
Crtra. Colmenar km 9.1 · 28034 · Madrid
Very happy to see this exciting study by @CCWendling published!
Higher phage virulence accelerates the evolution of host resistance | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.1070#.Yz0xj8JmEpM.twitter
🆕 I’m recruiting a postdoc! This is for a new @The_MRC project with @UKHSA and @jymaillard, looking at Pseudomonas evolution, ecology, and horizontal gene transfer in the hospital sink drain microbiome. Deadline 28th October. 🧵
https://my.corehr.com/pls/ulivrecruit/erq_jobspec_details_form.jobspec?p_id=048906
The efficient targeted mutagenesis of bateria in the gut environment is possible!!! I'm thrilled to share this exciting piece of work from @EligoBio ! Kudos to the whole team. Have a look at the thread below for more details. https://twitter.com/EligoBio/status/1576883358595850241
🚀 Very excited to share this work from our amazing scientists at @EligoBio.
🧬 We show that targeted mutations can be introduced with high efficiency directly in the gut microbiome - even without the need for selection!
Thread below... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.30.509847v1
Hoy hemos tenido el placer de escuchar a la Dra. Cristina Herencias (@Cris_Herencias), que nos ha hablado de sus dos recientes trabajos en relación a nuevas herramientas de lucha frente a bacterias #MDR.
#Bdellovibrio #CollateralSensitivity
@ciberinfec #Irycis
