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SUMMARY:Cheating in Pseudomnas aeruginosa drives switch to privatisation o
 f an essential function  - Professor Ashleigh Griffin\, Department of Zool
 ogy\, University of Oxford 
DTSTART:20171005T130000Z
DTEND:20171005T140000Z
UID:TALK75441@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonises the lungs of patients with cy
 stic fibrosis where they are able to persist for many years\, despite inte
 nse antibiotic treatment. These long-term infections provide an opportunit
 y to observe long-term dynamics of behaviour in a natural population of ba
 cteria. I will talk about a study that uses a unique collection of clinica
 l isolates to chart changes in the way bacterial cells harvest iron form t
 he host environment. In the lab\, strains that do not contribute resources
  towards iron harvesting\, invade populations of cooperative wild type cel
 ls. This leads to loss of cooperative iron harvesting in the population an
 d iron starvation. In the lung\, we have discovered that cells escape this
  fate by switching to an alternative mechanism which is invulnerable to ex
 ploitation by their neighbours. This result highlights the challenges of i
 dentifying selection pressures experienced by bacterial cells living insid
 e a human host.
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture Theatre\, Department of Genetics\, Downing Site
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