Marta Lourenço, PhD.

My scientific career has focused on the microbial ecology of the gut, particularly the evolution and interactions within the bacterial community and between bacteria and their viruses (phages). After a Master thesis on Evolution of Escherichia coli in the gut at the Instituto Gulbenkian Ciência, I moved to Paris where I was selected for the Pasteur-Paris University International doctoral program. From 2015 to 2019 I focused on studying phage-bacteria interactions in the mammalian gut at the Bacteria, Phage, Host laboratory at Institut Pasteur. The results obtained during this time led to a better understanding on how the ecological context that bacteria face in the gut impacts the coexistence of both, bacteria and viral populations. I followed on the same line of research for my first postdoc (2019-2022) at the Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial pathogens also at the Institut Pasteur, where I focused on Klebsiella pneumoniae and the possibility of using phages to tackle these multidrug resistant bacteria. This work provided new knowledge on the interactions of phages with these bacteria both in vitro and in vivo, with important implications for the prospects of using virulent phages as a therapeutic strategy that can complement existing antimicrobial therapies. 

Now back at the Evolutionary Biology group, I will focus on the evolution of colibactin-producing E.coli in the context of colorectal cancer and its impact on the host and microbiome and virome composition.