Abstract

Streptococcus suis is an important zoonotic pathogen causing severe systemic infections in pigs as well as humans. Recent genomic evidence from large clinical isolate collections suggests that metabolism plays a key role in S. suis pathogenicity. To explore the relationship between genomic variability, metabolism, and pathogenicity in S. suis in more detail, we developed the first large-scale ensemble of strain-specific S. suis genome-scale metabolic models. In my talk, I will discuss how these models can be used to identify new metabolic vulnerabilities that are conserved across clinical isolates and relevant in vivo, thus paving the way for new treatment strategies which directly target S. suis metabolism.

Dr. Karl Kochanowski is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at IRTA -CReSA in Barcelona (Spain). His research focuses on understanding the principles of cellular metabolic regulation, and their impact on disease outcomes. During his PhD research at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), he explored the role of protein-metabolite interactions in coordinating metabolic pathway activity in Escherichia coli. During his postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (USA), he investigated how changes in nutrient availability affect cancer cell behavior. At IRTA -CReSA, he and his team use a variety of experimental and computational systems biology approaches (e.g. high-throughput cultivation, metabolomics, and genome-scale metabolic models) to understand how cellular metabolism drives animal infections.