Abstract: Horizontal gene transfer plays an important role in bacterial evolution. Bacteria can acquire new genetic information, among other means, by transformation, which involves the acquisition of naked DNA from the extracellular environment, or conjugation, where the DNA is transferred directly from one organism into the other. I will discuss the barriers to both processes, and how this influences the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacterial populations. Furthermore, I will consider how mobile AMR can impact host-pathogen interactions and bacterial adaptation to human host environments.

Biography: Dr Ana Cehovin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, in the group of Prof. Christoph Tang, where she studies the spread and maintenance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) plasmids in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a human pathogen of high importance due to extensive resistance.

Ana is interested in how mobile AMR is acquired and contributes to the acquisition of new traits in bacteria, their adaptation to human host and disease development. She has considerable experience in host-pathogen interactions studies from her MSc at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and PhD at University College London, which she completed in 2009. She then moved on to investigate the mechanisms of extracellular DNA uptake in Neisseria meningitidis with Dr. Pelicic at Imperial College London, before joining Prof. Tang’s group in 2014. Ana is a Stipendiary Pathology Lecturer and Organising tutor at University of Oxford, and a key member of the Gonococcal Vaccine Initiative (GVI), an international collaborative, Wellcome Trust-funded project aiming at developing vaccines for combatting AMR in N. gonorrhoeae.

Dr. Ana Cehovin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, in the group of Prof. Christoph Tang, where she studies the spread and maintenance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) plasmids in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a human pathogen of high importance due to extensive resistance.
Ana is interested in how mobile AMR is acquired and contributes to the acquisition of new traits in bacteria, their adaptation to human host and disease development. She has considerable experience in host-pathogen interactions studies from her MSc at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and PhD at University College London, which she completed in 2009. She then moved on to investigate the mechanisms of extracellular DNA uptake in Neisseria meningitidis with Dr. Pelicic at Imperial College London, before joining Prof. Tang’s group in 2014. Ana is a Stipendiary Pathology Lecturer and Organising tutor at University of Oxford, and a key member of the Gonococcal Vaccine Initiative (GVI), an international collaborative, Wellcome Trust-funded project aiming at developing vaccines for combatting AMR in N. gonorrhoeae.