Predicting evolutionary trajectories of antibiotic resistance in structured environments

Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to human health. Bacteria become resistant in various ways, for instance by breaking down the antibiotic or by exporting it out of their cells. To design better treatments, we should understand and predict how bacteria evolve resistance under certain drug doses. This is challenging, because bacteria live in complex, spatially structured communities in which the fitness of resistant cells depends on their local competitors and conditions. We will combine modelling and laboratory experiments to study how resistant bacteria interact with nearby cells and how these interactions steer the evolution of resistance in bacterial populations.