The Florey Institute
  • Home
  • News and Events
  • Research
  • The Team
  • Antimicrobial Resistance MSc
  • Contact
Picture
Kathryn Billane

Email:                   KCBillane1@Sheffield.ac.uk
​PhD:                      2019-
Department:  
Animal and Plant Sciences
Supervisor(s): Prof. Michael Brockhurst, Dr. Ellie Harrison, Prof. Duncan Cameron, Dr. Jamie Wood
                                                                    
​Project:  The evolution of multi drug resistant bacterial pathogens

The evolution of antibiotic resistance poses a serious global threat to human and animal health. The emergence of multidrug resistant pathogens is often driven by the spread of plasmids that encode genes giving resistance to multiple antibiotics. Bacteria resist beta-lactam antibiotics by the production of beta-lactamase enzymes, coded for by blaCTX-M genes which sit on plasmids. These genes are very prominent in clinically important strains of bacteria as the plasmid is transferred by horizontal gene transfer. However, gaining a plasmid is not always beneficial for the bacterium because plasmids disrupt a wide range of cellular processes to cause large fitness costs. An exciting possibility is that if we understood how these fitness costs are caused we could exploit this weakness to select against resistance plasmids, reducing the burden of antibiotic resistance.
​
This project seeks to understand the general rules governing how diverse resistance plasmids impact cellular processes to create fitness costs in E.coli, an important bacterial pathogen of humans and animals. I will use multiple omics techniques (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) and systems biology approaches in combination with experimental evolution and molecular biology.
Additional Roles:
​
Treasurer of the Florey Institute, contacting sponsors to support the annual Florey PGR Symposium - October 2019-Present

The Team

Management Team

Microbiology

Immunology

Clinicians

Allied Disciplines

PhD students

MSc students

Former Members
​and Alumni

Picture
Picture
The University of Sheffield 
Western Bank 
Sheffield, South Yorkshire 
S10 2TN 

United Kingdom
The University of Sheffield | Research | Collaborate | Team | Jobs | Cookies policy | Privacy
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.

BACK TO TOP

© 2015 The University of Sheffield

© DivTag Templates Ltd | All Rights Reserved