The impact of antibiotics on the early life microbiota

我们出生时是不育的，但很快就会被复杂的微生物群落所占据，这些微生物群落被称为微生物群，对我们的健康至关重要。重要的是，生命早期微生物群的获得和发育可能受到许多因素的影响，抗生素治疗被认为是最重要的因素之一，导致微生物丰度和物种多样性的立即减少。在婴儿出生后的头几年里，尤其是当婴儿住在新生儿重症监护室（NICU）时，抗生素的处方量很大。此外，将早期生命肠道微生物群暴露于显著水平的抗生素可能会产生耐药菌株和可转移耐药基因的重要储存库，即所谓的“耐药基因组”，这可能与抗生素使用率的增加有关，这个博士生项目的目标是确定NICU婴儿的抗生素管理如何影响整体微生物群组成，以及强化抗生素治疗促进抗生素抗性基因的获得和携带。这个博士生代表了广泛的微生物学和利用人类婴儿样本的生物信息学技术的优秀培训模块，包括细菌培养，RT-PCR，下一代测序和生物信息学工具。诺里奇是一个领先的微生物学和微生物群研究中心，代表了一个很好的平台，为开始科学生涯。

We are born sterile, but soon become colonised by complex microbial communities, termed the microbiota which are critical to our health. Importantly, the acquisition and development of the early life microbiota can be influenced by numerous factors and antibiotic treatment is suggested as among the most significant, leading to an immediate reduction in microbial abundance and species diversity. Antibiotics are highly prescribed during the first few years of life, particularly when infants are residing in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). In addition, exposing the early life gut microbiota to significant levels of antibiotics may create an important reservoir of resistant strains and of transferable resistance genes, the so called "resistome", which may correlate with the increasing incidence of antibiotic-resistant and more infective pathogens.The goal of this PhD studentship is to determine how antibiotic administration in NICU infants influences the overall microbiota composition and how intensive antibiotic treatment promotes acquisition and carriage of antibiotic resistance genes. This PhD studentship represents an excellent training module for a wide range of microbiology, and bioinformatic techniques utilising human infant samples including; bacterial culturing, RT-PCR, next generation sequencing, and bioinformatics tools. Norwich is a leading microbiology and microbiota research centre and represents an excellent platform for a starting scientific career.