Susanne is a senior lecturer based at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. Susanne is interested in understanding how bacterial signalling pathways which relay specific information from the outside to the inside of the cell and trigger the most appropriate response, work, and what information they gather, how the different protein components communicate, which genes are switched on or off as a result of signalling, and how these responses adapt the bacterium to the encountered stress. Susanne’s work is focused in two main areas – antibiotic stress responses and environmental stress. In terms of antibiotic resistance, Susanne is using a combination of in vivo and in vitro approaches, supported by bioinformatics and mathematical modelling, to study signalling pathways involved in resistance against cell wall antibiotics in the Gram-positive bacteria, Bacillus subtilis and Enterococcus faecalis. Sub-projects range from mechanistic investigations of individual signalling pathways to systems-level investigation of whole regulatory networks. Ultimately, if these processes can be elucidated, it may be possible to design drugs that can avoid detection and thereby bypass resistance.
