Fitness effects of antibiotic resistance mutations

Antibiotic resistance is a major global problem that increasingly undermines our ability to fight bacterial infections.

The spread of resistance is essentially an evolutionary process: genes conferring resistance arise in bacteria by mutation or through horizontal gene transfer, and these genes then spread through natural selection.

This project aims to gain a better understanding of the distribution of fitness effects of drug resistance mutations, a major determinant in the speed at which resistance spreads and declines once drug use is ceased.

Supervisor: Dr Jan Engelstaedter