Breadcrumb

null Michael Reed, PhD

Scientist, RI-MUHC, Glen site

Infectious Diseases and Immunity in Global Health Program

Centre for Translational Biology

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University

Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, MUHC

 

Keywords

Tuberculosis (TB) • Mycobacterium tuberculosis • molecular microbiology • bacterial pathogenesis • antibiotic resistance

Research Focus

The research of my laboratory focuses on molecular aspects of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the bacterial agent responsible for the human infectious disease, tuberculosis (TB). Despite the existence of effective anti-TB antibiotics and a partially effective vaccine (BCG) for more than half a century, TB still remains the cause of almost 2 million human deaths worldwide each year ─ the most due to any single infectious agent. M. tuberculosis also has the unenviable distinction of causing the most deaths as a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Clearly, this situation reflects very poorly on our current level of understanding of the key molecular processes associated with pathogenesis and the acquisition of antibiotic resistance in this important global pathogen.

Our laboratory combines molecular microbiology with cell-based and whole animal (mouse) infection models, in order to characterize a range of metabolic (e.g., cell signalling, gene regulation), virulence and antibiotic-resistance strategies that are available to this pathogen. Increasing our knowledge in these areas will greatly enhance future efforts aimed at developing novel antibiotic and/or vaccine-based approaches to prevent TB disease.

Selected Publications

Click on Pubmed to see my current publications list

  • Domenech P, Mouhoub E, & Reed MB (2022). Experimental confirmation that an uncommon rrs gene mutation (g878a) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis confers resistance to streptomycin. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy [doi: 10.1128/AAC.01915-21]. PMID: 35072512.

  • Mouhoub E, Domenech P, Ndao M & Reed MB (2021). Recombinant BCG-based vaccines to target infectious diseases other than tuberculosis: an overview. Frontiers in Microbiology [doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.757858]. PMID: 34745066.

  • Ghanem M, Dubé J-Y, Wang J, McIntosh F, Houle D, Domenech P, Reed MB, Raman S, Buter J, Minnaard AJ, Moody DB & Behr MA (2020). Heterologous production of 1-tuberculosinyladenosine in Mycobacterium kansasii models pathoevolution towards the transcellular lifestyle of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. mBio 11(5): e02645-20. PMID: 33082253.

  • Buter J, Cheng T-Y, Ghanem M, Grootemaat AE, Raman S, Feng X, Plantijn AR, Ennis T, Wang J, Cotton RN, Layre E, Ramnarine AK, Mayfield JA, Young DC, Jezek Martinot A, Siddiqi N, Wakabayashi S, Bottella H, Calderon R, Murray M, Ehrt S, Snider BB, Reed MB, Oldfield E, Tan S, Rubin EJ, Behr MA, van der Wel NN, Minnaard AJ & Moody DB (2019). Mycobacterium tuberculosis releases an antacid that remodels phagosomes. Nature Chemical Biology 15: 889-899. PMID: 31427817.

  • Domenech P, Zou J, Averback A, Syed N, Curtis D, Donato S & Reed MB (2017). Unique regulation of the DosR regulon in the Beijing lineage of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Journal of Bacteriology 199: e00696-16. PMID: 27799329.