BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:icalendar-ruby CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:EECE Seminar - Mark Brynildsen X-WR-TIMEZONE:Central Time (US & Canada) BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260517T213316Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_36114154604384 DTSTART:20210312T170000Z DTEND:20210312T180000Z DESCRIPTION:Mark Brynildsen\, AssociateProfessor\,Dept. of Chemical and Bio logical Engineering at Princeton\, will present: \n\nAddressing antibiotic resistance by understanding how antibiotics fail and searching for altern ative treatments\n\nABSTRACTThe research of my group is motivated by the g lobal public health threat of antibiotic resistance. Alarmingly\, the incr ease in antibiotic-resistant infections has not been met by a comparable e xpansion to the antibiotic pipeline. Such a scenario has been recognized b y the World Health Organization and countries around the world as a seriou s threat to our ability to treat bacterial infections. In my group\, we se ek to address this crisis by improving the efficacy of current antibiotics and identifying novel anti-infectives to complement conventional therapie s. Specifically\, in one area we examine why antibiotics fail to sterilize bacterial populations under best-case treatment scenarios: bacteria are s ensitive to the antibiotic\, the antibiotic concentration is well above th at necessary to kill bacteria\, and resistant mutants are not present in t he population. This phenomenon is known as bacterial persistence\, and it is thought to contribute to infection relapse following efficacious antibi otic treatment. Further\, it is thought to provide a reservoir of bacteria from which resistant mutants can arise during chronic infections. Our wor k on bacterial persistence centers on understanding the physiological aspe cts of persisters that allow them to survive when their genetically identi cal kin cannot. In our other area\, we apply principles and techniques fro m metabolic engineering to understand how bacteria defend themselves again st immune antimicrobials\, such as nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide. Not ably\, sensitization of pathogens to immune effectors constitutes an anti- infective approach that could produce treatments that are orthogonal to cu rrent antibiotics\, and thus able to restock the antibiotic medicine chest . In this talk\, I will summarize our work in these areas and discuss how the knowledge we have uncovered can contribute to the fight against antibi otic resistance.\n\nBIO: Dr. Mark P. Brynildsen received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University\, New Brunswick in 2002 and e arned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California\ , Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2008\, where he worked with Dr. James C. Liao. Aft er working for 2 years as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) post-do ctoral associate with James J. Collins within the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University\, Mark joined the faculty of the Departm ent of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University in 2010 . Currently\, he holds the position of Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton and is the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The overarching goal of his research group is to improve the perf ormance of current antibiotics and identify targets for novel anti-infecti ves. To accomplish this\, the Brynildsen group uses computational and expe rimental techniques in systems biology and metabolic engineering to develo p novel\, fundamental understanding of the molecular mechanisms and networ ks pathogens use to thwart immune antimicrobials and antibiotics. Mark’s research has been published in journals such as Nature\, Nature Biotechno logy\, Nature Communications\, PNAS\, Molecular Cell\, and Current Biology \, and he has been the recipient of a Howard B. Wentz\, Jr. Junior Faculty Award and an NSF CAREER Award. LOCATION: SUMMARY:EECE Seminar - Mark Brynildsen URL;VALUE=URI:https://happenings.washu.edu/event/eece_seminar_-_mark_brynil dsen CATEGORIES:Seminar/Colloquia END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR