Bacterial infections: antimicrobial therapies

The Bacterial infections: antimicrobial therapies group is a junior group under IBEC’s Tenure Track scheme.

Infectious diseases constitute a tenacious and major public health problem all over the world. The emergence and increasing prevalence of bacterial strains that are resistant to available antibiotics demand the discovery of new therapeutic approaches.

Biofilms are bacterial communities that grow embedded within a protective matrix produced by themselves.

Also, chronic infections caused by bacteria growing in biofilms, are enormously complicated to treat. It increases their fitness and survival, thus complicating treatment and diagnosis because they persist despite the action of antibiotic therapies and adaptive immune responses.

Over 60% of all human infections are characterized by the formation of a biofilm, which is involved in a wide variety of pathological conditions by either growing over human tissues (Cystic Fibrosis, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, chronic wound, etc.) or by developing on the surfaces of medical devices (e.g. endotracheal tubes, intravenous and urinary catheters, etc.).

Our lab aims to investigate new antimicrobial therapies and strategies to combat bacterial infections with different objectives:

• The use of nanomedicine techniques for the development of novel and specific nanoparticles to deliver existing antibiotics or new identify antimicrobial drugs, significantly when the bacteria are growing in biofilm, close to the physiological conditions of the disease and where the current chemotherapy fails;
• The identification and screening of new molecules for the highly selective inhibition of new antibacterial targets (e.g. ribonucleotide reductases);
• The use of nanomedicine techniques for the development of novel and specific nanoparticles to deliver existing antibiotics or new identify antimicrobial drugs, significantly when the bacteria are growing in biofilm, close to the physiological conditions of the disease and where the current chemotherapy fails;
• To study new methodologies to treat chronic bacterial infections in patients suffering cystic fibrosis;
• To develop a new family of antibacterial vaccines;
• The development of new strategies for bacterial coculture systems;
• To study and develop models for wound healing infections and the search of novel treatments;
• The use of lab-on-a-chip technology to deeply elucidate mechanisms to combat bacterial forming biofilm as well as new approaches to identify multiresistant bacteria to different antibiotics.
• To establish the molecular basis for the regulation of genes involved in DNA synthesis (ribonucleotide reductase genes), their importance in virulence and biofilm formation;

We believe these projects will be beneficial to society since we explore the use of different bioengineering approaches to elucidate ways to diagnose and eradicate multi-drug resistant bacteria.

Related links:

https://sites.google.com/view/torrentslabwebpage

Eduard Torrents Serra

Group Leader

+34 934 034 756

etorrentsibecbarcelona.eu

Researcher profile

Former Members
Maria del Mar Cendra | PhD Student

• Zeiss LSM 800 Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope
• Nikon Inverted Fluorescent microscope ECLIPSE Ti-S/L100
• Cell culture facilities for microbial infections
• Characterization of nanoparticles/biomaterial antibacterial activity
• Drosophila melanogaster and Galleria mellonella as a model host for bacterial infections
• Continuous flow system model for bacterial biofilm development
• Single Channel Fiber-Optic Oxygen Meter with microsensor
• Molecular biology, biochemistry and protein purification facilities
• Bacterial expression systems for heterologous protein production

• Prof. Fernando Albericio
  Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB), Barcelona, Spain
• Dr. Elisabeth Engel
  IBEC
• Dr. Esther Julián
  Dept. de Genètica i de Microbiologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr. Joan Gavaldà
  Infectious diseases, Vall d’Hebrón Hospital and Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain
• Prof. Víctor Puntes
  Inorganic nanoparticles group, Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnología, Barcelona, Spain
• Prof. Josep Samitier
  IBEC
• Prof. Santiago Vazquez
  Laboratori de química farmacèutica, Pharmacy Faculty, Barcelona University
• Prof. Gabriel Gomila
  IBEC
• Prof. Vladimir Arion
  Department of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Vienna, Austria
• Dr. Maria Teresa Martin-Gomez
  Division of Respiratory Bacteriology and Clinical Mycology. Microbiology Department. Vall d’Hebrón Hospital, Spain