Mehmet Orman
University of Houston, TX·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Nearly every bacterial population contains a few "persister" cells. These cells survive high doses of antibiotics without being genetically resistant, then resume growing once treatment stops.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Engineering
Biochemistry
- Topics
persister cells
bacterial persistence
antibiotic tolerance
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2027
What they work on
- Identify genes important for persister colonization using a high-throughput fluorescence-based screen combined with transposon mutagenesis and genomic sequencing.
- Validate candidate persistence genes with promoter libraries and fluorescence microscopy, then test single and combined gene knockouts, possibly focusing on reactive oxygen species regulators.
- Test the hypothesis that persister cells have active, distinctive metabolism by determining how metabolic processes drive persister formation across a variety of bacterial strains.
- Determine how metabolism maintains persister survival and resuscitation after antibiotic removal, and develop platforms to study metabolic differences among persister subpopulations.
More about the research
Persisters are thought to drive recurring chronic infections and to give rise to drug-resistant mutants. Antibiotic tolerance of this kind is a major public health threat. Both projects aim to explain how bacteria switch into and out of the persister state, which could open routes to anti-persister strategies.
Why it matters
Persister cells help explain why some infections return after antibiotic treatment and how drug resistance can emerge. Identifying the genes and metabolic processes that let persisters survive and regrow could reveal targets for anti-persister strategies. Such strategies could help patients with recurring chronic bacterial infections.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Mark Brynildsen
Princeton University, NJ·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify the DNA repair systems that single- and double-chromosome E. coli persisters use to survive fluoroquinolones such as ciprofloxacin, by sorting cells by chromosome number with FACS and testing DNA repair mutants.
Elizabeth Libby
Northeastern University, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Quantitatively dissect how conserved Hanks-type serine/threonine kinase–phosphatase systems in Bacillus subtilis are wired, and how that architecture generates rare single cells with extreme phenotypes such as antibiotic resistance.
Rasika Harshey
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Microbiology & Immunology
Use phage Mu transposition, which inserts DNA almost anywhere, to build a high-resolution map of contacts between genomic loci in E. coli and test how genome organization influences gene expression.
The school
University of Houston: 21 labs on PI Pages, $239M a year on research, 374 research doctorates a year.
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