Laboratory of Systems and Synthetic Microbiology
Bakshi Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
We are actively engaged in the analysis (systems microbiology) and engineering (synthetic microbiology) of microbial systems for developing a comprehensive understanding of the processes underlying the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in microbes, and for engineering modified microbes (bacteria and viruses) to tackle resistant infections.Â
Our primary tools are molecular biology, single-cell microfluidics, time-lapse microscopy, and machine learning. We leverage these tools synergistically to investigate the following questions:
How do noise in regulatory networks and environmental fluctuations contribute to physiological heterogeneity at the cellular level?
How does physiological diversity among cells affect their response to treatment with antimicrobials and bacteriophages?
How does the heterogeneous response to antimicrobial/phage treatment influence population dynamics over both short and long timescales, including the evolution of resistance?"
