Fauve Vergauwe
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Fauve Vergauwe Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Microbiology (LPM) |
Fauve Vergauwe graduated in Biology (Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences) in 2020 at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She started as a PhD student at LPM in September that year.
The main focus of her research is experimental evolution of the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cenocepacia. The aim of her research is to elucidate the mechanisms that lead to reduced antibiotic susceptibility in P. aeruginosa and B. cenocepacia biofilms.
This will be achieved by allowing bacteria to evolve in vitro in the presence of antibiotics, so that all mutations and relevant phenotypic characteristics can be mapped. The collected information will allow the development of machine-learning based algorithms that predict antibiotic susceptibility. This way, we can move away from the standard growth-based susceptibility tests and use whole-genome sequences for antimicbrobial susceptilibilty testing.