By Dr Felipe Lira, on the 22nd of March, at 14h30, room 0.2 (former room A1) (Campus Asprela).
Felipe Lira, has a B.Sc degree from the Federal University of Pernambuco – UFPE . Was Research Fellow at the National Amazon Research Institute – INPA performing vegetable sensus in areas subjected to fragmentation. Researcher at the Center of Biotechnology of Amazonia – CBA developing access protocols to genetic resources. Specialist in Bioinformatics, M.Sc from the University Nilton Lins, developing synthetic peptides with antimicrobial effect. Ph.D from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Postdoctoral at the Center National Biotechnology Spain – CNB identifying mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance.
As many antibiotics exist as many mechanisms of resistance will rise. Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide problem and deserves all sort of attention and dedication to identify the critical points which might promote or facilitate the emergence of novel resistance genes in one community, as well the propagation of the already known genes.
The increasing of antimicrobial resistant organisms, mediated by the transference of genes vertically or horizontally and by spontaneous mutations represent a risk for human health. Frequently, bacteria suffer injuries from antibiotics, biocides and heavy-metals, in clinical and environmental environments, which exert a selective pressure over these organisms interfering at the abundance and composition of environmental communities.
This pressure of antimicrobials compounds leads to evolutionary and ecological consequences that are not fully understood were highlighted in our studies.
Comprehensive analysis of the effects leaded by antibiotics and biocides at the smallest genetic elements, as genes, passing through the organized arrangement of the genome and finishing in the complex group forming the metagenome. To this, wet-lab techniques and bioinformatics approaches were applied to elucidate the main questions as: (a) Infective and environmental strains of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia constitute two different phylogenetic branches?; (b) May triclosan exerts influence at the selection of antibiotic resistance genes and genetic mobile elements involved in the antimicrobial resistance in sludge from Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTP); (c) How does the presence of triclosan affects the taxonomic composition of an environmental microbiota?
The answers found were: (a) Independently on the origin, clinical and environmental strains of S. maltophilia present similar genomic composition; there is not an "infective" S. maltophilia lineage; (b) Triclosan alters the number of antibiotic resistance genes present in a microbiota in a concentration‐dependent way; (c) Triclosan affects the composition of the microbiota collected from a WWTP. Altogether, these results serve to understand the multi-level procedure that operates for selecting antibiotic resistance and propose different complimentary approaches to study this problem.
All are invited
