Lunch & Learn: Chemical Tools to Eradicate Bacterial Resistance with Professor Erin Carlson
About the Presentation
The University of Minnesota is a world leader in the field of chemical biology, or the use of chemical strategies to study and manipulate biological systems. A particular strength in the Department of Chemistry is the application of chemical methods for drug development. In this talk, Erin Carlson will discuss how the Carlson group employs chemistry to combat antibacterial resistance. It has been estimated that antibacterial resistance will contribute to ten million deaths annually by
2050 and efforts to address this extreme challenge have focused on the identification of new drug targets to kill resistant bacteria. Carlson’s work, originally funded by the UMN Office of Academic Clinical Affairs, has instead demonstrated that i
nterruption of the way that bacteria interact with their environment, such as a human host, has the potential to reverse and even eradicate antibacterial resistance. Rather than directly killing the bacterial pathogens, which immediately promotes the evolution of new resistance mechanisms, their strategy prevents microbes from mounting an attack on the host. Carlson will discuss this ongoing work, which has shown great promise in a number of high-priority bacterial pathogens and has resulted in two patents.
Questions? Contact Mollie Dunlap at msdunlap@umn.edu.
There is no charge to attend our event, but pre-registration is required. Register by Wednesday, May 8.