Research interest

Population Genetics of Natural Escherichia coli Isolates: From Basic Evolutionary Biology to Clinical Strains

Escherichia coli is a versatile pathogen responsible for a major public health problem. E. coli is an intestinal commensal (Tenaillon, Skurnik et al. 2010) as well as an opportunistic pathogen (Denamur, Clermont et al. 2021) mammals and birds. Frequent, varied, severe and increasingly resistant to antibiotics (de Lastours, Laouenan et al. 2020), E. coli in humans are responsible for more than one and a half million deaths per year worldwide. The strains of E. coli can cause both extraintestinal infections (urinary tract infections, various intra-abdominal, lung, skin and soft tissue infections, neonatal meningitis and bloodstream infections) and intestinal infections (various forms of diarrhoea).
In this context, since the early 1990s, I have developed an ecological and evolutionary approach based on the study of natural isolates of E. coli in order to identify the mechanisms that allow these bacteria to adapt and in particular to become virulent and resistant to antibiotics.