This project will investigate how AMR plasmids, bacterial defenses, and antibiotic treatment interact to determine the overall spread of AMR plasmids. To do this, you will study the transmission dynamics of clinically relevant AMR plasmids in E. coli populations.
To defend themselves against their parasites, bacteria carry a wide range of defense systems. Recent work shows that the most prevalent defense systems, restriction-modification and CRISPR-Cas systems, can have a key role in limiting AMR plasmid spread.
Antibiotic treatment promotes AMR by selecting bacteria carrying AMR plasmids. It is found that antibiotics also affect plasmid conjugation rates and, importantly, host defenses: bacteriostatic antibiotic treatment can promote the acquisition of CRISPR-Cas defense against phages, another type of mobile element. Crucially, different antibiotics have different effects on plasmid transmission and on bacterial defenses, suggesting that specific antibiotic treatments might minimize antibiotic resistance.
This interdisciplinary project will use various experimental approaches including fundamental microbiology, molecular biology and genetics, to understand the mechanistic factors that control plasmid susceptibility to bacterial defenses and the molecular effects of antibiotics; and use mathematical modelling to understand how these effects combine.
This 4 year PhD project is part of a competition funded by the EASTBIO BBSRC Doctoral Training Partnership.
This opportunity is open to UK and International students and provides funding to cover a stipend at the UKRI standard rate and UK-level tuition fees. The University of St Andrews will cover the Home-International fee difference.
For more details, click here https://biology.ed.ac.uk/eastbio/how-to-apply
For more phage-related research and job opportunities, click here https://jobs.thephage.xyz/
