Hello and welcome to the A16 Z journal club. I'm Lauren Richardson.

This is our podcast where we cover recent scientific advances, why they matter,

and how to take them from proof of principle to practice.

Antibiotic resistance is an urgent problem,

but many aspects of how bacteria acquire this ability to evade the drugs designed

to target them are still mysterious,

and it is not always clear whether the conditions

that drive the evolution of resistance in the lab occur in patients suffering from bacterial

infections.

This is where the work of Natalie Balaban, a professor at the Hebrew

University and my guest today, comes in. She joins me to discuss her article

published in science titled Effective Tolerance on the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance

Under Drug Combinations.

The work is based off of previous research done in her laboratory and importantly, uses

samples from a patient with a life-threatening bacterial

infection to understand the conditions that lead to multi-drug resistance in a hospital setting.

The work reveals how the ability of bacteria to develop tolerance, which we also refer to as dormancy or slow growth, can act as a stepping stone to resistance and can interfere with the efficacy of drug combinations.

Our conversation covers what tolerance is, the conditions that promote tolerance,

how it leads to resistance and impacts drug combination therapies and lastly

integrating this new understanding into clinical microbiology protocols.

Here's our conversation.

How would you describe the big question that this work sets out to address?

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