Study of Bacterial Population Interactions: A Systems Approach

The race of antibiotic drug development against drug resistance developed by pathogenic bacteria is a futile one. As the industry designs newer and newer antibiotics, robust and harmful strains unaffected by such medicines keep evolving. Perhaps the solution lies elsewhere. The environment a pathogen resides in a host is a complicated one. An entire ecosystem of microorganisms thrive in our GI tract. A holistic study using principles of computational deterministic modelling of the dynamics of such interactions may give better insight into the system and perhaps reveal alternative tools to bring down the population of the invading disease causing microorganisms. This work is an initial approach of understanding such a system. Attempts at making models which could be used on other systems of similar situations have been made. It is observed that certain strains of bacteria may be used to suppress the harmful resistant strains, a hint at alternative therapy against bacterial infections.

Autorentext

Archishman Ghosh, B.Sc. Chemistry (Honors), M.Sc. Biochemistry, Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. Junior Research Fellow at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Biophysics Division, Kolkata, India.