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UI Researchers Study Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria through $1.3 Million NIH Grant
Oct. 20, 2005
MOSCOW – Antibiotics have had a major impact on improving human and animal health. But the benefits of an antibiotic can be short-lived. Bacteria have the ability to quickly develop a resistance to antibiotics that decreases the effectiveness of the medicine in treating infectious diseases.
Two University of Idaho researchers – Steve Krone, professor of mathematics, and Eva Top, associate professor of biology – received a $1.3 million five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how antibiotic resistance spreads in bacteria. It is an unusual collaboration between a mathematician and a biologist, but a sign of a growing trend in health research.
“Funding agencies like the National Science Foundation and NIH are increasingly supporting interdisciplinary projects,” said Krone. “At UI, we have what I think is one of the best groups in the country, the Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies, that unites mathematicians, biologists and computer scientists.”
Krone and Top are studying plasmids in bacteria, which are known to transfer genetic information, including antibiotic resistance, from one cell to another.
“Bacteria are interesting because when they reproduce, they simply divide; one cell turns into two cells with the same genetic information,” said Top. However, bacteria also can give a copy of their plasmid from one cell to another. “Resistance can thus spread either through reproduction or from cell to cell through what is called horizontal gene transfer.”
Horizontal transfer of genetic information within a population of bacteria has been studied in the test tube. But, Krone points out, bacteria in nature don’t live in liquid environments like a test tube; they live on surfaces, often in large bacterial communities called biofilms.
“What hasn’t been studied is mathematical models that can help us understand and predict the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacterial communities that grow on surfaces,” said Krone. “We are introducing the spatial structure – a real life situation.”
The research involves experiments in the laboratory conducted by Top and her students and postdoctoral scientists to gather information on the patterns and rates of spread of antibiotic resistance plasmids in a biofilm. Krone and his students then translate the biological data into a mathematical model.
“From the model, we can make predictions and observations that can be studied in the lab,” said Krone. “The new information will allow the researchers to fine-tune the model to more precisely predict what is happening in the biological world.”
The researchers hope their work will lead to an understanding of the fundamental biology of plasmid transfer in bacteria that grow in biofilms. “That understanding will help biologists identify ways to reduce the spread of antibiotic resistance which will benefit all of us,” said Krone
CONTACTS: Steve Krone, professor of mathematics, (208) 885-6317, krone@uidaho.edu; Eva Top, associate professor of biology, (208) 885-5015, evatop@uidaho.edu; or Jeff Olson, University Communications, (208) 885-8934, jolson@uidaho.edu
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