Outside to inside: The relationship of eukaryotic homologues of serine-threonine kinase signalling in bacterial pathogens to antibiotic resistance.

课程概述：这个由MRC资助的博士培训伙伴关系(DTP)将尖端分子和分析科学与数据分析中的创新计算方法结合在一起，使学生能够解决假设引导的生物医学研究问题。这是一个为期4年的课程，第一年包括一系列的教学模块和两个基于实验室的研究项目，这些项目导致了跨学科生物医学研究的硕士学位。前两个学期包括精选的教学模块，使学生能够在多学科的科学中获得坚实的基础。学生们还参加了由学术和行业专家主持的一系列大师课程，这些专家涉及分子、细胞和组织动力学、微生物学和传染病、应用生物医学技术以及人工智能和数据科学等领域。在第三学期和暑期，学生们在他们选择的实验室里进行两个为期十一周的研究项目。项目：抗菌素耐药性(AMR)是对全球公共健康的日益严重的威胁，是一个复杂的社会经济和科学问题。尽管社会对开发新型抗菌剂有明显的需求，但由于一些财政和商业因素，对该部门的投资有所下降，仍然远远低于跟上新出现的耐药性形式所需的水平。因此，抗菌药物的开发和靶点发现正日益成为学术界和规模较小的生物技术公司的角色。为了控制AMR危机，需要致力于抗菌素研究的新方法、知识和训练有素的专家。我们的研究涉及研究肠球菌，这是一组细菌，构成了我们正常肠道菌群的一部分，但可以在手术后引起机会性感染。肠球菌对两类重要的抗菌药物具有耐药性，我们的研究表明，有一种蛋白质将这两种耐药性联系在一起。当这种蛋白质在化学上或基因上被移除时，细菌对这两种抗菌药物不再具有耐药性。随着进一步的研究，我们可能会发现新的药物，可以消除这种蛋白质，使旧的抗生素再次有效。我们还需要探索这一观察是否可以扩展到其他细菌病原体，包括艰难梭菌(C.diff)；艰难梭菌是一种会导致老年患者和免疫抑制患者严重疾病的物种，对世界各地的医疗体系来说是一个巨大的负担。

Programme overview:This MRC-funded doctoral training partnership (DTP) brings together cutting-edge molecular and analytical sciences with innovative computational approaches in data analysis to enable students to address hypothesis-led biomedical research questions. This is a 4-year programme whose first year involves a series of taught modules and two laboratory-based research projects that lead to an MSc in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. The first two terms consist of a selection of taught modules that allow students to gain a solid grounding in multidisciplinary science. Students also attend a series of masterclasses led by academic and industry experts in areas of molecular, cellular and tissue dynamics, microbiology and infection, applied biomedical technologies and artificial intelligence and data science. During the third and summer terms students conduct two eleven-week research projects in labs of their choice. Project:Antimicrobial drug resistance (AMR) is a growing threat to public health worldwide, and is a complex socioeconomic and scientific problem. Despite the clear social need for the development of novel antimicrobials, investment in this sector has declined due to a number of financial and commercial factors and remains far below the level required to keep pace with newly emerging forms of resistance. Therefore, antimicrobial drug development and target discovery is increasingly becoming the role of academia and smaller biotech companies. To control the AMR crisis, new methods, knowledge and trained specialists dedicated to antimicrobial research are required. Our research involves studying Enterococci, a group of bacteria that form part of our normal gut flora yet can cause opportunistic infections following surgery. Enterococci are resistant to two important classes of antibacterial drugs, and our research has shown that there is a protein that links the two types of resistance. When this protein is removed, chemically or genetically, the bacteria are no longer resistant to both antibacterial drug types. With further research, we may be able to discover novel drugs that will knock out this protein, allowing older antibiotics to be once again effective. We also need to explore if this observation can be extended to other bacterial pathogens including Clostridium difficile (C. diff); a species which causes severe disease in elderly and immunosuppressed patients and is a great burden on healthcare systems world-wide.