Wendy Mok, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Molecular Biology & Biophysics, UCONN Health
Host: Victoria Robinson
"Bacteria in Sickness: How Persisters Recover from Antibiotic Treatment"
Summary: Depending on their metabolic state, bacteria may not necessarily die during antibiotic treatment. In this talk, I will discuss our work on investigating the environmental signals and molecular events that influence bacterial death and persistence following antimicrobial therapy.
Seminar Link: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/webappng/sites/uconnvtc/meeting/download/73b0482edc2d4296b538911b3923d6f4?siteurl=uconnvtc&MTID=mf888e1957a812a5c6b3968a2580b5f42
Dr. Mok completed her Ph.D. with Dr. Yingfu Li at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Her doctoral thesis focused on bacterial toxin-antitoxin systems. This work sparked her interest in bacterial stress response and persistence, and this led her to complete her postdoctoral training in Dr. Mark Brynildsen’s lab in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. At Princeton,she investigated the metabolic responses of bacterial persisters that enable them to overcome antibiotic treatment and contribute to infection relapse. In 2019,she joined MBB at UCONN Health, where research in her lab focuses on environmental triggers that impact persister formation and survival.
To learn more about Dr. Mok and her work, visit https://www.pnas.org/content/115/27/E6301.short and her website at: https://health.uconn.edu/mok-lab/