πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­ Caleb Anderson

Caleb Anderson

PhD (Pharmaceutical Sciences)
Research fellow
Caleb.Anderson [at] unige.ch

 



Caleb is originally from Georgia, USA and completed his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of North Georgia in Chemistry, with a Biochemistry concentration.Β  There he undertook an interdisciplinary research project investigating bacterial natural products, which led him to a research role with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Products Utilization Research Unit.Β  While at the USDA, Caleb focused on characterization of bacterial, fungal, and plant natural products.Β  After this, he pursued a PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago, completing his degree in 2023.Β  His thesis work focused on quorum sensing regulated immunomodulatory cell wall modifications in Streptococcus pyogenes under the direction of Dr. Michael Federle.Β  Shortly after completing his PhD, Caleb joined the Kline Lab as a postdoctoral researcher to investigate multispecies interactions during Enterococcus faecalis infection.Β  In his free time, Caleb enjoys exploring Switzerland, hiking, and sailing.

Investigating how different bacterial species interact with one another remains a critical question for understanding clinical pathologies, which often present as co-infections.Β  Enterococcus faecalis is an opportunistic pathogen responsible for a range of clinical manifestations including urinary tract infections (UTI’s), endocarditis, and bacteremia, and accounts for 65-80% of nosocomial infections caused by Enterococcus species.Β  Pseudomonas aeruginosa is often co-isolated with E. faecalis in clinical infections and studies have shown that the presence of these pathogens together can affect their growth, pathogenicity, and likely clinical outcomes.Β  Understanding these dynamic multispecies interactions is therefore critical to developing therapeutics, which is especially relevant given the rising antibiotic resistance in both of these bacterial species.Β  We are using multiple approaches to characterize these interactions, guided by co-infection in vivo studies using an E. faecalis transposon insertional mutagenesis library (Tn-Seq).

1. A staphylococcal glucosaminidase, SagB, drives inflammatory responses by processing peptidoglycan chains to physiological lengths.Β  Zachary J. Resko, Caleb Anderson, Michael J. Federle, Francis Alonzo III; Infection and Immunity (2023)
2. The proteomic and transcriptomic landscapes altered by Rgg2/3 activity in Streptococcus pyogenes. Britta E. Rued, Caleb M. Anderson, Michael J. Federle; Journal of Bacteriology (2022)
3. The context of the ribosome binding site in mRNAs defines specificity of action of kasugamycin, an inhibitor of translation initiation. Yan Zhang, Nikolay A. Aleksashin, Dorota Klepacki, Caleb Anderson, Nora VΓ‘zquez-Laslop, Carol A. Gross, Alexander S. Mankin; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022)