🎥 Professor @andresfloto.bsky.social
on new funding from: @wellcometrust.bsky.social @gatesfoundation.bsky.social @novonordisk.bsky.social and how VPD-HLRI research is helping reshape antibiotic discovery in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
Read more:
🔗 bit.ly/4rJy6c2
A low-carb diet is considered a promising weight-loss solution. But does it really help to reach your dream weight?
In a fact check for #UniNova, endocrinologist PD Dr. Eleonora Seelig explains that food quality matters more than cutting out carbohydrates.
This is figure 1, which shows that ASCT enables high-throughput assessments of bacterial viability.
A paper in Nature Microbiology presents Antimicrobial Single-Cell Testing, a large-scale live-cell imaging approach that quantifies bacterial killing in real time at single-cell resolution, which can predict treatment outcomes. go.nature.com/3Nwnez8 #microsky 🧪
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This work is not the end of our journey. It’s the start.
If you find it interesting and would like to discuss, collaborate, support or work with us, please reach out.
#Tuberculosis #NTM #AMR #SingleCell
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Huge thanks to the co-first authors (Alexander Jovanovic, Frederick Bright and Ahmad Sadeghi), collaborators, and funders (SNSF, Cloëtta Foundation, Bangerter-Rhyner Foundation, Goldschmidt-Jacobson Foundation, Helmut-Horten Foundation, and the Swiss Society for Pneumology).
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Take-home: antibiotic efficacy isn’t just about inhibiting growth, but also about killing bacteria in the right physiological state.
Single-cell killing measurements predict in vivo outcomes, uncover new biology, and enable improved drug discovery, regimen design, and personalised diagnostics.
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Can ASCT help tailor treatments to individual patients?
Strain-specific M. abscessus killing dynamics for amikacin, cefoxitin and imipenem were associated with individual patient outcomes, whereas most MICs were not.
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Can ASCT uncover new bacterial biology?
By combining ASCT with whole-genome sequencing and GWAS, we identified a phage protein strongly linked to M. abscessus killing (of drugs targeting protein synthesis only). We experimentally validated this effect using gene knockout and complementation.
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Is killing also shaped by the bacterium?
Assessing >400 clinical isolates of Mycobacterium abscessus, we observed highly variable killing dynamics. These differences were distinct from drug resistance, yet largely driven by bacterial genetics.
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Can ASCT guide drug development?
Testing 65 drug regimens in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, we found that killing under starvation conditions (but not in nutrient-rich media) predicted infection outcomes in mice and humans. MICs did not.
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To address this, we developed Antimicrobial Single-Cell Testing (ASCT): a high-throughput live-cell imaging approach that measures bacterial death in real time at single-cell resolution.
Using ASCT, we tracked >140 million individual bacteria, for up to 7 days, across >20,000 conditions.
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Most antibiotic tests measure bacterial growth inhibition, not bacterial death.
This often fails to predict treatment outcomes, especially in mycobacterial infections, where therapy is long, requires multiple antibiotics and is frequently unsuccessful (e.g. M. abscessus).
Our first lab paper is out.
Large-scale testing of antimicrobial lethality at single-cell resolution predicts mycobacterial infection outcomes.
From single cells to patients, across tuberculosis and M. abscessus.
👉 doi.org/10.1038/s415...
👇 Thread
Some bacterial pathogens play dead to dodge antibiotics. A new test watches them closely—and helps choose drugs that finish the job. #AntibioticTolerance @biomedizin.unibas.ch @lucboeck.bsky.social
Some bacterial pathogens play dead to dodge antibiotics. A new test watches them closely—and helps choose drugs that finish the job. (Symbolic image: Adobe Stock)
How can we tell whether an antibiotic eradicates an infection? Researchers from the @biomedizin.unibas.ch, at the @unibas.ch, present an antimicrobial single-cell microscopy-based method that measures antibiotic lethality in individual bacteria.
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s415...
@natmicrobiol.nature.com
Very nice work Luiz - congrats!
Very nice work Josie - congrats!
Excited for New Approaches and Concepts in Microbiology 2025 with sessions on Bacterial systems biology, Bacterial cell biology & protein machines, Microbiomes, Environment & evolution, Pathogenesis & phage, Antibiotic discovery, mechanisms, and resistance. #EESMicrobiology
In the fight against bacterial pathogens, researchers are combining vaccination with targeted colonization of the intestine by harmless microorganisms. This approach could potentially mark a turning point in the antibiotics crisis. www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/news/detail/...
Exciting PhD studentship opportunity in @andresfloto.bsky.social lab on understanding chemical permeability to advance antibiotic drug discovery www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50800/. Combines experimental approaches with in silico screening and generative AI.
Happy to share the latest work from the lab @crick.ac.uk. Outstanding work from Di Chen and Tony Fearns showing the link between Mtb membrane damage, calcium leakage and ATG8/LC3 lipidation in macrophages. Congratulations Di and Tony!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Apply now for our international Master of Science in Physics of Life @biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibasel.ch! Scholarships available.
More information: www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/education/de...
#Master #Students #Research #Physics #Mathematics #ComputerScience #Engineering #Basel #Switzerland
NEW COMMENT!
TB trials with purely microbiological primary endpoints give greater weight to outcomes that matter most, generalise better to non trial settings, are less biased if regimens differ in duration, and are often better powered
#IDSky @catherineberry.bsky.social @sgschumacher.bsky.social
Host and pathogen aficionados:
Join us in Blois!- registration deadline 1st March- Please RP-
meetings.embo.org/event/24-hos...
New paper, discussing open problems in bacterial phenotype prediction with ML: arxiv.org/abs/2502.07749
Researchers at the University of Basel have developed a method to test the mode of action of 1,500+ substances on cells at once, uncovering hidden drug mechanisms and potential new uses - paving the way for repurposing drugs.
We found that many bacterial species use exogenous peptidoglycan fragments - released by lysis of neighboring cells - as a general danger signal, triggering a danger response that protects bacteria against many dangers: biofilm formation.
Details here 👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
⚠️ Bit of an alarm bell to MDR-TB regimen BPaL/M - resistance to constituent antibiotics developing and transmission of such strains already occurring
#TBSky #IDSky @nejm.org
www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/...
Indeed a very beautiful start into 2025 - congrats !
Is this a joke? If so a very bad one
