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Abstract: The ability of bacteria to become resistant to previously successful antibiotic treatments is an urgent and increasing worldwide problem. Solutions can be sought via a number of methods including, for example, identifying novel antibiotics, re-engineering existing antibiotics or developing alternative treatment methods. The nonlinear interactions involved in infection and treatment render it difficult to predict the success of any of these methods without the use of computational tools in addition to more traditional experimental work.

We use mathematical modelling to aid in the development of anti-virulence treatments that, unlike conventional antibiotics that directly target a bacterium’s survival, may instead attenuate bacteria and prevent them from being able to cause infection. Using examples such as anti-adhesion treatments for P. aeruginosa infections, we use ordinary differential equation modelling to predict both the success of anti-virulence treatments and also their drawbacks, drawing on the mathematical analyses to predict how the latter can be overcome.

Biography: Sara Jabbari graduated from Durham University in 2003, incorporating a year of study at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. She went on to complete a PhD in mathematical modelling of cell-cell bacterial communication, under the supervision of Prof. John R. King at the University of Nottingham.

Sara is a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham. Her research uses mathematical modelling to investigate bacterial behaviour, spanning a range of biological applications from drug development to bioenergy. Sara was awarded a Biomedical Informatics Fellowship from the MRC in 2011, providing her with invaluable laboratory experience for carrying out and designing interdisciplinary projects. She currently holds BBSRC funding and leads an interdisciplinary team focused on developing novel treatments for bacterial infections.