Identification and development of novel antimicrobial therapies

Abstract

My PhD thesis focuses on the identification and development of novel antimicrobial therapies against bacteria, with particular emphasis on addressing the biofilm mode of life and quorum sensing. In the first part of my thesis, I describe the use of whole genome sequencing to understand the development of drug resistance in two Acinetobacter baumannii strains that were isolated from burn trauma victims hospitalized in an Intensive Care Unit in Rigshospitalet, Denmark. In the second part of my thesis, I describe how I developed a fast, cost-effective and accurate in silico platform for the identification of novel quorum sensing inhibitors (QSIs) against the las QS system in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Lastly, I describe how I used comparative systems biology tools (RNA-sequencing and proteomics) to shed light on a novel QS inhibition mechanism, the inhibition of small regulatory RNAs, by iberin, a natural compound isolated from horseradish.