CHARMing the Superbugs with Dr. Victor Nizet

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are threatening modern society by making antibiotics obsolete. Dr. Nizet is a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Pediatrics at UCSD, as well as the faculty lead for the UCSD Collaborative to Halt Antibiotic-Resistant Microbes (CHARM). His laboratory studies how the human immune system interacts with microbial pathogens, with particular focus on antibiotic resistant bacteria and how to treat them. Dr. Nizet discusses how his training as a physician helps drive the research in his laboratory, how repurposing therapeutic drugs could help fight antimicrobial resistance, how taking advantage of host immune responses can enhance the treatment of infectious diseases, how the success of modern medicine is training some bacteria to become pathogenic, how nanobots made from algae can be used to treat difficult infections, and how the environment at UC San Diego contributed to the success of his lab. This episode was supported by the do-it-yourself mail-order Gram stain kit.* Participants: Karl Klose, Ph.D. (UTSA) Victor Nizet, M.D. (UC San Diego) Venus Stanton (UTSA) Jesus Romo, Ph.D. (UTSA) * "Ads" heard on microTalk are for parody purposes only, there are no actual products for sale.