The Infection Microbiology group investigates bacterial respiratory infections in patients suffering from the heritable disease cystic fibrosis (CF).
The majority of the CF patients live with bacteria in their lungs from early childhood until they die prematurely. In the Infection Microbiology group's project, the focus is on translational biomedical research based on three important questions:
- Why is it not possible to kill the bacteria with antibiotics?
- How do the bacteria change during their long persistence in the CF airways?
- How can we – using the answers to the first two questions – get more efficient treatment of the patients, and thus improve their life expectancy?
The group studies bacterial infection in CF patients, because it is an excellent model for infectious diseases for which antibiotic treatment is challenged by a frequent lack of success. Equally important is that modern human lifestyle, and increases in the average population life span, will create problems with long-term bacterial infections that are difficult or impossible to treat.
Moreover, the rising global problem of antibiotic resistance threatens to become the biggest health risk within the next 20-30 years. The group's research is directly addressing the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Over the last few years, the group has introduced methodologies which have also been applied by cell factory designers at the Center, in order to clarify how the bacteria avoid eradication by antibiotics or by the host immune system. This work has clearly shown that several previous explanations are insufficient or wrong, and it is therefore important to address new challenging questions concerning the fights against microbial infections.
The Infection Microbiology group is located at The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, DTU Biosustain, and it is headed by Professor Søren Molin.