Close up of petri disc with microbes.

Fighting antimicrobial resistance

The KLEB-GAP project aims to provide new, timely insights into the ecology, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and pathogenicity of Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kp), a WHO high-priority bacterial pathogen in the fight against AMR. The project runs its simulations on Sigma2's supercomputer Saga. 

 

First-in-kind approach to explore bacterial pathogen

Using a first-in-kind One Health detection and analysis approach, we are exploring the presence, persistence, and transmission of Kp and related AMR within and across human, animal, and environmental reservoirs. The project will provide a foundation for

  • further development of global surveillance methodology to monitor the flow of Kp and related AMR across sectors
     
  • the development of whole metagenomic sequencing beyond the state-of-art for diagnostics and surveillance of Kp-clonal lineages involved in AMR dispersion and pathogenicity, and
     
  • pre-clinical efficacy studies of bacteriophages as treatment of colonisation and infection by multidrug-resistant (MDR) Kp.
     

Benefitting from unique surveillance infrastructure

The project takes advantage of the unique Norwegian human and animal AMR-surveillance infrastructure, the Institute of Marine Research/ Norwegian Food Safety Authority sampling systems in the marine environment, the interdisciplinary AMR One Health Norwegian Kp-network (NOR-KLEB-NET), and the ongoing Norwegian human Kp-study (NOR-KLEB) to access animal, human, and environmental Kp-reservoirs/-strains/-genomes with relevant metadata. 
 

Cross-border collaboration

The project involves six Norwegian and four international partners. The Norwegian institutions are cross-sectorial and include university hospitals, institutes, a university, and one industry partner. 

Kenneth Lindstedt, Dorota Buczek, and professor Arnfinn Sundsfjord. Photo.
PhD-student Kenneth Lindstedt, Postdoc Dorota Buczek and professor Arnfinn Sundsfjord, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway.

 

With the help of the national e-infrastructure resources provided by Sigma2, the researchers from KLEB-GAP aims to extend our knowledge of human and animal Kp-ecology, analyse strain-level Kp-diversity in metagenomes, and disclose gut microbiome composition patterns that may support or exclude Kp-colonization.
Arnfinn Sundsfjord, Professor of Medical Microbiology, UiT