Agata Soltysinska, aged 24 from South London (originally from Poland) has just joined Queen Mary University London (QMUL). She’s beginning a PhD studentship funded by Antibiotic Research UK (via a generous donor).
She is working on ‘Re-purposing Cefepime/ Sulbactam as a precision treatment of gram-negative infections’ and is being supervised by Dr David Wareham of Queen Marys, Dr O Marches and Prof J Stranding of UCL.
Agata completed a BSc degree in Biochemistry at Royal Holloway University, followed by an MRes degree in Biomedical Science with Antimicrobial Resistance at St George’s University.
Agata explained: “I have previously carried out research into using colistin in combination with the non-antibiotic drug mefloquine. This helps to increase colistin’s efficacy. I have a good theoretical and practical background for continuing work on novel sulbactam combinations. I’m excited to start working with Dr David Wareham at QMUL.
“I am starting by analysing data from the Antibiotic Research UK funded MUTATE study. That will enable us to propose a new breakpoint for cefepime/sulbactam susceptibility testing to the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST). This will allow clinical laboratories to reliably categorise bacteria as susceptible or resistant to the combination. It is a critical step in progressing cefepime/sulbactam, as a standard treatment for multi-drug resistant Gram-negative infections. I am excited to be joining this project and look forward to seeing where this research can take us.”
This 3-year PhD studentship is based at the Blizard Institute at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. Agata will be keeping us posted on her progress – welcome Agata and good luck!
You can read Agata’s progress report here.