Overcoming Bacterial Defense Mechanisms

To treat many infectious diseases, including the global scourge of tuberculosis, doctors must do battle with a wily adversary. Over millennia, bacteria have gained the ability to endure all sorts of threats, including extreme cold and heat and the lack of food, water, and oxygen. One of their most common survival strategies is to simply stop growing, presumably to conserve energy and bolster their defenses. Unfortunately for afflicted patients, bacteria have also acquired strategies for thwarting attacks from the immune system and the onslaught of antibiotic drugs. To develop effective treatments for these ailments, we need to know more about the strategies bacteria use to survive stresses. Scarlet Shell, assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), is seeking to do just that by probing the molecular changes that underlie these mechanisms.