Generation and Treatment of Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotics are responsible for the most significant increase in lifespan in human history. However, microbes are becoming resistant to antibiotics at an alarming rate. For example, uncontrolled drug-resistant infections can lead to recurrent urinary tract infections, sepsis, and even death. The Mulvey lab found that microbes within a single colonized site, such as the human bladder, can pass antibiotic resistance genes back and forth, propagating resistance as the infecting microbes evolve in response to serial antibiotic treatment. To improve potential treatments, the Brown lab developed methods to rapidly identify drugs that interact with existing antibiotics to increase drug efficacy. Exploiting these potentiating interactions between existing drugs allows us to expand our drug repertoire by drug repurposing - using drugs already approved by the FDA for other indications - which bypasses expensive and time-consuming clinical trials.