Dr. Joe Larkin is part of one of three groups to win a 2024 Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering Award. The Fund, launched in 2017, has awarded $14 million to support projects that have advanced science, built collaborative structures for interdisciplinary research, and expanded funding opportunities.
Dr. Larkin, along with Dr. Mary Dunlop, Dr. Douglas Holmes, and Dr. Harold Park, are leading innovative efforts to address the urgent global challenge of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance poses a serious global health threat, with bacteria evolving faster than new drugs can be developed.
The team’s project focuses on horizontal gene transfer and the single-cell level events that are involved in making an individual bacterium transition from being drug-susceptible to drug-resistant. Using optogenetics, they aim to trigger and observe this process in real time, offering novel insights into how bacteria transition from drug-susceptible to drug-resistant. Their innovative work could lead to groundbreaking strategies to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Read the full announcement here.
Congratulations, Dr. Joe Larkin!