Congratulations to CMP Faculty Member Danica Fujimori, PhD, For Delivering the 2017 Byers Award Lecture on Tackling Antibiotic Resistance.
Since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1940, countless lives have been saved by antibiotics. But their effectiveness is severely compromised by the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, accelerated by the over-prescription of antibiotics and their widespread use as growth promoters in livestock farming.
With the failure of these drugs, routine procedures that depend on antibiotics – like hip replacements, cesareans, and organ transplants – may one day become too risky to perform.
The problem of antibiotic resistance and how research may help keep drugs effective was the topic of this year’s Byers Award Lecture in Basic Science, given by Danica Galonić Fujimori, PhD. Her Jan. 31 talk was titled “Unlocking the Mystery of Antibiotic Resistance.”
The Byers Award in Basic Science is awarded annually to recognize and support the outstanding research of a mid-career faculty member. Fujimori is an associate professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology and leads a group studying how bacteria acquire antibiotic resistance.