A University of Dundee researcher has been awarded over £900k in funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to research how some bacteria can survive in inhospitable environments and the potential for new treatments.
Dr Megan Bergkessel, from the School of Life Sciences, aims to determine how bacteria can survive and grow in inhospitable environments with little food. This research will inform new treatments for chronic bacterial infections, which are difficult to treat and can be fatal. Dr Bergkessel and her team also aim to harness the beneficial activities of bacteria on plants.
Dr Bergkessel said, “My research seeks to understand how bacteria control their activities under conditions where they lack sufficient food or energy to grow. We think they commonly encounter these kinds of conditions in the natural world, including when they are causing infections. Importantly, they are able to survive exposure to antibiotics whenever they are not growing, because antibiotics target the processes they use to grow and divide.
“We have discovered some factors in the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa that are important for controlling its non-growing ‘survival’ states. Pseudomonas aeruginosa can cause terrible infections that are difficult to treat with antibiotics, in part because it can enter a protected survival state. Starting with the discoveries we have already made, we can expand our search to identify additional control factors.”
Dr Bergkessel believes that having a better understanding of bacteria’s non-growing “survival” states could help in devising better strategies for treating chronic infections, and for harnessing beneficial activities of bacteria on plants.
“This award provides long-term support, so we can dedicate the necessary time and effort to really understanding the basic science of bacterial survival, and then also have time to form collaborations and begin to figure out how to apply that understanding toward solving problems like the increase in antibiotic resistance, and the need for alternative strategies to improve crop yields.
“I feel honoured and lucky to have the opportunity to commit all my time and effort toward making new discoveries in an area of microbiology research that has often been neglected in the past. I am excited to work with lots of other talented researchers within the University of Dundee and at other institutions in the UK. I am looking forward to sharing the new things we learn.”
UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships support early career researchers and innovators with outstanding potential. More than 101 of the UK’s top researchers from all over the country have received a portion of a £109 million investment as part of UK Research and Innovation’s Future Leaders Fellowships.
The investment will propel the next generation of researchers as they lead cutting-edge projects.
UK Research and Innovation Chief Executive, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, said, “Future Leaders Fellowships provide researchers and innovators with freedom and support to drive forward transformative new ideas and the opportunity to learn from peers right across the country.
"The fellows announced today illustrate how the UK continues to support and attract talented researchers and innovators across every discipline to our universities and businesses, with the potential to deliver change that can be felt across society and the economy."
University of Dundee
Nobel Prize winning poet and honorary graduate Seamus Heaney has described the University of Dundee as ‘having its head in the clouds and its feet firmly on the ground.’ The ability to be both aspirational and down-to earth and to blend ground-breaking intellectual achievement with practical applications, has given the University its distinctive character.
