Conlon Lab

Congratulations to MD-PhD student, Amanda Velez and all co-authors on our new PNAS paper describing how the innate immune protein calprotectin incapacitates autolysins, inducing tolerance to B-lactam antibiotics. A fun collaboration with Thomas Kehl-Fie. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Deaths linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs rose 17% in England in 2024 Data also shows an average of nearly 400 newly reported cases of antibiotic-resistant infections a week last year

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Job ad for Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment interactions position

Job ad for microbial drivers of chronic disease position

Come join us in Knoxville!

The Dept. of Microbiology 🧫🦠 at the University of Tennessee is hiring 2 Assistant Professors (tenure track, 9-month appt.).

Microbial Drivers of Chronic Disease: apply.interfolio.com/173153Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment Interactions: apply.interfolio.com/173345

A host-directed adjuvant sensitizes intracellular bacterial persisters to antibiotics - Nature Microbiology The authors developed a screen to find compounds that modulate intracellular Staphylococcus aureus metabolism and discovered KL1, which sensitizes persisters to antibiotics by reversing host-induced tolerance.

Delighted to share our latest paper - A host-directed adjuvant sensitizes intracellular bacterial persisters to antibiotics. Excellently led by Dr. Kuan-Yi Lu. We think it's a great proof-of-concept that altering immune cell behavior can make antibiotics work better www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Looking to hire a postdoctoral associate to examine how antibiotics frequently fail in vivo and identifying new ways to make them work better. unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/306...

Copy number flexibility facilitates heteroresistance to increasing antibiotic pressure and threatens the beta-lactam pipeline Nature Communications - Choby et al. show that dynamic increases in the copy number of preexisting β-lactamase genes in heteroresistance enables resistance of continua of cellular...

Excited to share the work with @dweisslab.bsky.social‬ and great collaborators on how gene amplification generates dynamic heteroresistance to new beta-lactams, like cefiderocol. We hope drug developers will consider heteroresistance during antibiotic development rdcu.be/euijW

Flagellar motility and the mucus environment influence aggregation-mediated antibiotic tolerance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in chronic lung infection | mBio Antibiotic treatment failure of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection is a key driver of mortality in muco-obstructive airway diseases (MADs). The bacterial mechanisms that contribute to antibiotic toleran...

For our first post on Bluesky, we're excited to share our recent work published in mBio @asm.org! Led by PhD student @madeofmicrobes.bsky.social, we show that flagellar motility and interactions with the mucus environment influence Pseudomonas antibiotic tolerance.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

A broad-spectrum lasso peptide antibiotic targeting the bacterial ribosome - Nature A new lasso peptide antibiotic exhibits broad-spectrum activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria by interfering with bacterial protein synthesis, is unaffected by common resistanc...

Discovery of a new class of natural antibiotics with a new mode of action to address antimicrobial resistance, a major unmet need
@mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social
@nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rifaximin prophylaxis causes resistance to the last-resort antibiotic daptomycin - Nature Rifaximin use, particularly in patients with liver cirrhosis, may be compromising the clinical use of daptomycin.

Research shows: Rifaximin prophylaxis drives resistance to daptomycin, an unrelated, last-resort antibiotic

Rifaximin is used for hepatic encephalopathy in liver patients at high risk for infections, including VRE treated with daptomycin. The antibiotic was thought to pose a low resistance risk

Diabetes boosts antibiotic resistance in mice Researchers found that infectious bacteria in diabetic mice rapidly evolved resistance to antibiotics.

www.nih.gov/news-events/... Nice to see our recent paper highlighted in NIH - Research Matters newsletter

Multiple faculty positions in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in association with the Center for Immunology, and the
Center for Antimicrobial Resistance at Cornell University

Diabetes potentiates the emergence and expansion of antibiotic resistance Diabetic infections are a reservoir for the emergence and proliferation of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus.

Delighted to share our new study. A collaboration with the Thurlow lab. Antibiotic resistance rapidly emerges and thrives in diabetic mice. A worrying coming together of two major and growing health problems worldwide www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Intestinal E. coli-produced yersiniabactin promotes profibrotic macrophages in Crohn’s disease Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-associated fibrosis causes significant morbidity. Mechanisms are poorly understood but implicate the microbiota, espe…

#WeekendRead! Ahn, Arthur &co show @CellHost&Microbe that pathogenic E. coli produce a metallophore that sequesters zinc in macrophages, stabilizing HIF1a & driving fibrosis in #IBD mouse models and Crohn Disease patients! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Unique VRSA Strain Identified in North Carolina The 16th confirmed case of VRSA in the United States offers new information regarding the risks posed by the drug-resistant infection.

A new VRSA variant was found in North Carolina, raising concerns. The emergence of more VRSA variants and locations increases the risk of spread, as it expands the potential to infect different populations and environments, making it harder to control and contain.
www.idse.net/Resistance-S...

U.S. sets Thanksgiving record for whooping cough cases At least 364 pertussis cases were reported, marking the worst Thanksgiving week on record.

Worrisome

During the 2022–23 school year, CDC reports DTaP vaccine coverage dropped to 92.3%; vaccine exceptions rose 10%

As a pediatrician, few patients were as precarious as the infant with pertussis hospitalized for weeks in the ICU with severe apnea spells requiring repeated resuscitation

How do secreted and membrane-localized enzymes get appropriately metalated?
... Bixi He and I tackled this question, with a focus on the cell envelope...

Metalation of Extracytoplasmic Proteins and Bacterial Cell Envelope Homeostasis | Annual Reviews - go.shr.lc/3V0lM92

Antibiotic-recalcitrant Salmonella during infection - Nature Reviews Microbiology In this Review, Giorgio and Helaine provide an overview of the physiology of antibiotic-recalcitrant Salmonella enterica during infection, discuss recent insights into the clinical implications of ant...

New Salmonella Persister cells Review is just out❗️

Rachel Giorgio & Sophie Helaine overview the physiology & clinical implications of antibiotic-recalcitrant Salmonella during infection

- highlighting important knowledge gaps that need to be addressed…

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Arginine Regulates the Mucoid Phenotype of Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.20.624485v1 Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae is associated with severe community-acquired infections. Hypervi

Arginine Regulates the Mucoid Phenotype of Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.20.624485v1

Research, prevention, awareness -
Controlling Microbes to Fight Infections

Here‘s the start of a list of some researchers on Bluesky who are working with (or who have worked with) inoculation theory, a theory of resistance to influence built on a biological inoculation/vaccine analogy, with applications in mis/disinformation, politics, health…

go.bsky.app/7E6pFc4

Excited to see many in the bacterial pathogenesis community joining here in the last few weeks, so here's a Starter Pack to help make connections. Reply/DM to be added to this or future Packs. #Microsky go.bsky.app/VH64BaY

Opinion | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Could Do Almost Limitless Harm Our public health system is imperfect, but it’s also a miracle that can be easily broken.

Finally, someone speaks some sense at @nytimes.com. Thank you Zeynep Tufekci. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/o...

Congratulations Lauren! Great work!

MAMPM February 2-4, 2025 Wintergreen Resort, Virginia

Calling all microbiologists! Registration is open for the Mid-Atlantic Microbial Pathogenesis Meeting, February 2-4, 2025.! Abstract deadline is 12/8/2024, but don't wait, filling fast. Check it out at mampm.org.

Histone H1 kills MRSA Marsman et al. detect histone H1 in MRSA in human abscesses and demonstrate that it kills MRSA under physiological conditions. They identify through selective evolution and a genome-wide screen that h...

Publication Alert! Happy to share our new work published in CellReports of a collaboration with the Zychlinsky Lab (Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology). "Histone H1 kills MRSA". cell.com/cell-reports.... Enjoy!

Great list. Please add me. I hope all is going well with you.