Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Egan

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Egan who graduated yesterday with her Ph.D. from TCD. Sarah undertook her Ph.D. research in the Microbiology Research Unit, Division of Oral Biosciences at the Dublin Dental University Hospital under the supervision of Prof. D. Coleman. Sarah’s Ph.D. research investigated the population biology of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) from Irish hospitals and the genetic basis of linezolid resistance among hospital enterococci using whole-genome sequencing.

Sarah’s work showed for the first time that VREfm in Ireland are genetically diverse but emerged following the acquisition of a common vancomycin resistance encoding transposon element. Her work also demonstrated that Ireland has one of the highest rates of gene-encoded linezolid resistance among hospital enterococci in the world. Linezolid is an antibiotic of last resort for treating invasive Gram-positive bacterial infections and the emergence of highly transmissible linezolid resistance severely limits treatment options for invasive infections. Sarah’s Ph.D. research has resulted in three publications in international journals (see links below):

https://academic.oup.com/jac/article/75/7/1704/5780432

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195670120302449?via%3Dihub

https://academic.oup.com/jac/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jac/dkab393/6423109