May 7, 2020
Professor Fábio Aguiar-Alves
specializes in identifying bacteria common to staph infection. For
example, he can identify the exact types of bacteria present on a
patient before they face surgery in order to prevent serious
bacterial infections.
He tells listeners
Fábio Aguiar-Alves is an associate professor of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology at Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil. While his initial studies focused on parasites, he became intrigued with bacteria during his PhD work and followed up with a postdoc at University of California, Berkeley, where he researched Staphyloccocus Aureus, a common staph infection.
He now works in molecular
epidemiology, identifying bacteria in patients and looking for
specific genes that relate to virulence and resistance. He can
provide this information to help guide the doctors in specific
treatments to prevent or treat
bacterial infection. He explains what he's looking for after he
does this DNA retraction.
For example, if he finds a certain gene denoting resistance, he can
tell the doctor not to use penicillin to treat this patient because
it won't solve the problem. Ultimately, this serves to give the
patient a specific antibiotic when needed rather than a broad
spectrum antimicrobial agent.
He goes into more details about
the process—specifically PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to
identify the genes—which takes from 2 to 3 hours to figure out.
Therefore, they can give a fast answer to the doctor about how to
treat—much faster than past systems which delayed treatment
considerably.
He also explains the different methods for treating the resistant
MRSA versus Staphyloccocus Aureus, how common each is in the
general population, and how future advances include better mobility
and even faster testing times. He also explains the role lateral
gene transfer plays in the spread of MRSA.
Found out more by searching for his google scholar profile and listings. His papers are listed in NCBI under aguiar/alves and his University website is http://pesquisadores.uff.br/researcher/f%C3%A1bio-aguiar-alves.