Finding achilles heel: investigating how to control major bacterial pathogens

细菌感染仍然是发病率和死亡率的主要原因，医院获得性感染仍然很常见。具有抗菌素耐药性的细菌数量的增加使得预防感染比以往任何时候都更加重要。医院环境是病原体的储存库，通常是抗菌素耐药性，清洁和消毒对预防感染至关重要。然而，目前尚不清楚用于消毒的活性物质有多少，细菌对暴露于这些物质有何反应，是否会产生耐药性，以及这是否也会影响抗生素耐药性。该项目是Quadram研究所和GAMA医疗保健之间的合作伙伴关系，将解决这些问题。Quadram研究所最近开发了新的方法来研究细菌中所有基因在任何给定压力下的作用。这项技术（基于大量转座子突变文库的使用）将在这里应用于了解关键病原体对重要感染预防因子的反应。该项目的目的是产生有助于开发下一代感染控制产品的数据，以帮助控制AMR细菌感染的威胁。

Bacterial infection remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality with hospital acquired infections still common. The increase in numbers of bacterial which are AMR (antimicrobial resistant) makes prevention of infection more important than ever. The hospital environment is a reservoir for pathogens which are often AMR and cleaning and disinfection is critical to preventing infection. However, there is currently a lack of knowledge about how many of the active agents used in disinfection act, how bacteria respond to exposure to these agents and whether resistance can develop and if this will also affect antibiotic resistance. This project is a partnership between the Quadram Institute and GAMA healthcare which will address these issues. The Quadram Institute has recently developed new methods to study the role of all genes in a bacterium in response to any given stress. This technology (based on use of massive transposon mutant libraries) will be applied here to understand the responses of key pathogens to important agents critical to infection prevention. The aim of the project is to generate data that will help develop the next generation of infection control products to help control the threat from AMR bacterial infections.