Paul E. Turner

Turner uses his deep knowledge of virus-host interactions and evolutionary biology to address fundamental questions in both basic biology and clinical medicine. Most notable are his achievements in the development of an evolutionary strategy to counter bacterial antibiotic resistance. His idea is to find and engineer phages that specifically target the membrane transporter proteins that endow many pathogenic bacteria with antibiotic resistance. The viruses thereby either kill or drive the evolution of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria towards susceptibility. In fact, this strategy was already successful in saving the life of one patient with an infection after aortic-arch replacement surgery.