Welcome to the BERNEY LAB!

Microbes have shown a remarkable ability to evade eradication by antimicrobial agents, such that treatment of bacterial infections once again represents an urgent global challenge. It is estimated that failure to address the problem of antibiotic resistance could result in 10 million deaths every year globally by 2050 and a cost of $ 84 trillion in lost productivity to the global economy. 

Today, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) alone kills around 1.8 million people each year, more than any other infectious disease1. This is particularly alarming because the number of multidrug-resistant Mtb clinical isolates is rapidly increasing1. Novel antibacterial tactics are urgently required to combat the rise of antibiotic resistance.

The Berney Lab studies the role of metabolism and bioenergetics in Mycobacterium tuberculosis host adaptation and antibiotic tolerance. Our goals are to identify vulnerable pathways, translate these findings into drug discovery and determine drug mechanism of action. We use a combination of genetic, metabolomic, transcriptomic and biochemical approaches to learn how to defeat the global threat of M. tuberculosis.