Professor Willem van Schaik - 'Antibiotic resistance in opportunistic pathogens and commensal members of the human gut microbiota'
2:00pm - 3:00pm /
Monday 8th June 2026
/ Venue: Lecture Theatre 1 Life Sciences Building
Type: Seminar /
Category: Department
/ Series: Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences
- Carole Thomas
- Suitable for: All are welcome
- Admission: Free to attend
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The human gut harbours a complex microbial ecosystem (‘the gut microbiome’) consisting of commensals and opportunistic pathogens, like E. coli and Enterococcus. Here I will present recent work which highlight the remarkable ability of enterococci to evolve resistance to glycopeptides, potentially providing an explanation for the high prevalence of vancomycin resistance determinants in Enterococcus faecium, compared to other enterococcal species. In addition, I will present recent work in which we characterise underexplored microbial reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes in the human microbiome through a combination of culture-based methods and the implementation of long-read metagenomics and metagenomic chromosome confirmation capture (Hi-C) techniques. Finally, I will discuss our work aimed at characterising the bacteriophage populations in patients undergoing intensive antibiotic therapy, to what extent these phages may have a role in the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes.