The award was given in conjunction with structural biology group of Dr Martin Walsh at Diamond Light source, UK. The money will fund two Post-Doctoral Research Fellows to continue their current research focusing on regulation of virulence in bacterial pathogens.
The work is aimed at using state of the art techniques in protein expression and structure determination in combination with genetic and biochemical approaches to study how bacteria respond to environmental stimuli to cause disease. The work that will be carried out will help in understanding novel signal transduction systems involved in regulation of bacterial virulence and biofilm formation, leading to new opportunities for the control of bacterial disease.
The focus of such work is becoming increasingly important with the growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance and the paucity of novel antibiotics. It is imperative to identify target areas for the development of new therapeutic drugs.
Picture: Award recipients, Dr Robert Ryan and Dr Max Dow, BIOMERIT Research Centre, Department of Microbiology, UCC
