May 8, 2024
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.