Apr. Sara Van den Bossche
 |
Apr. Sara Van den Bossche Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Microbiology (LPM) |
Sara Van den Bossche graduated as Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Drug Development) at Ghent University in June 2017 and works as a PhD student in the LPM sice October 2017.
Her research focusses on the development of a personalized antimicrobial susceptibility test for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients.
Chronic lung infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa are strongly correlated with morbidity and mortality in CF patients. The current approach to treat these infections is administering antibiotic therapy based on the results of conventional susceptibility testing. However, for this approach there is often no correlation with clinical outcome.
This project aims at investigating the role of several in vivo bacterial (such as biofilm phenotype, polymicrobial nature) and host factors (epithelial-cells) in antibiotic efficacy against P. aeruginosa. Identification oft he in vivo factors that have a significant impact on the susceptibility of P. aeruginosa will form the basis of te development of novel susceptibility tests.