"The Behavioural Ecology of Bacteria in Infection”

Date

May 9, 2017

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Ashleigh Griffin

Affiliation

Department of Zoology, Oxford University, UK

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Other Topics

Biologie

Host

Jochen Rink

Description

Abstract: Advances in genetics and molecular biology in recent decades have revealed cellular mechanisms in bewildering detail. In contrast, we know surprisingly little about the functional significance of the traits we observe, we know very little about behaviour of bacteria in “natural populations”, have limited ability to explain individual variation in behaviour, and, therefore, have limited ability to make meaningful testable predictions about how bacteria are likely to respond to changes in their environment over time. All of these questions are important to clinicians aiming to treat disease caused by bacterial infection. The primary reason for lack of progress is that it is extremely difficult to characterise the selection pressures facing bacterial cells living in a human host - how does a bacterial cell experience life in a human lung? I have tried to make a dent in this question through my research on the dynamics of a social trait in Pseudomonas aeruginosa infecting cystic fibrosis patients, and after ten years of research, we have some answers. Further, my talk will contain a picture of a meerkat and also explain why the planarian stem cell system is an amazing model system for investigating the behavioural ecology of individual cells in multicellular animals.

Last modified: May 10, 2017, 10:02:05 AM