IBA / TTA seminar by Yonatan Grad: Antibiotic resistance in N. gonorrhoeae and S. aureus—mechanisms, trends, and strategies for control

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 22/05/2017
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

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Location: Domus Medica, Round Auditorium
Sognsvannsveien 9, 2. etg.
Gaustad
0372 Oslo

Co-Hosted by IBA and Turning the Tide of Antimicrobial resistance. (TTA).

Seminar: Antibiotic resistance in N. gonorrhoeae and S. aureus—mechanisms, trends, and strategies for control

Yonatan Grad
Yonatan Grad

Antibiotic resistance poses an immense and growing clinical and public health challenge. To understand the emergence and spread of resistance, we combine epidemiological, genomic, and phenotypic analyses to study two pathogens: Staphylococcus aureus, one of the most common bacterial pathogens and a cause of significant morbidity and mortality, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the cause of the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea. Our findings of increasing antibiotic susceptibility in S. aureus in Boston, MA over the past 15 years, as well as evidence of gain and loss of resistance in both S. aureus and N. gonorrhoeae, suggest that the increase of resistance is not inexorable and points towards antibiotic prescribing strategies that may aid in efforts to control resistance.

Dr. Yonatan Grad is an Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He did his PhD entitled “Computational analysis and prediction of regulatory sequences in bilaterians” (with George Church – 2004) and M.D. (2006), both at Harvard Medical School. Yonatan and his collaborators are at the forefront of studies as to how pathogens evolve and spread through populations with the motivation of improving clinical and public health strategies for decreasing the burden of disease. To date, his efforts have focused on several pathogens, including Neisseria gonorrhoeae, respiratory syncytial virus, and E. coli. He aims to use a variety of methods, including genomics, epidemiological tools, and microbiology to define the dynamics of spread and characterize the genotypic and phenotypic diversity of the pathogens. He has received a number of distinquished awards including most recently the ICAAC Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Microbiology (2016).​