Speaker
Description
Beta-lactams are the most commonly prescribed antibiotics, and beta-lactamases are ancient enzymes that have evolved to degrade these drugs. When beta-lactamase producing bacteria are exposed to lethal drug concentrations, lysing cells release the enzyme to the medium, thereby contributing to the rescue and eventual recovery of the population. The talk will report on experiments with E. coli exposed to cefotaxime and explain how the observed complex response to near-lethal drug concentrations emerges from a combination of filament formation with the extracellular (public) and intracellular (private) degradation of the antibiotic. Using a minimal mathematical model, it will be shown that, paradoxically, the time to collective recovery is often reduced by increasing the individual death rate.