DrMiryam Bonvegna

I am a veterinarian formerly employed in emergency ward with a particular interest in infectious 
diseases and microbiology. Thence, in 2017 I started a Master in Clinical Microbiology at Glasgow 
Caledonian University, during which I widened my knowledge and my technical expertise about 
human infections, environmental bacteria and diagnostics (from serological tests and bacterial 
culture to PCRs). 
After completing this MSc, I decided to pursue my research career considering the antimicrobial 
resistance (AMR) topic as I observed during the MSc period, how even sub-inhibitory antibiotic 
concentrations could influence toxin expression in nosocomial pathogens such as S. aureus. So, I 
joined the University of Turin, Veterinary Sciences Department, where I carried out a PhD project 
on a One-Health issue: AMR in livestock productive chain and its association with sanitary and 
productive parameters. The PhD gave me the opportunity to work with phenotypic and genotypic 
tests (such as multiplex and simplex PCRs, WGS and Sanger sequencing to detect diverse resistance 
genetic markers) for both Gram- negative and positive bacteria; moreover, it allowed me to explore 
antimicrobial usage at farm level and its correlation to AMR bacterial indicators, write posters, 
conference contributions and research articles. After the PhD period, and a short period at 
Veterinary Epidemiological Observatory in Brescia, in 2022 I was selected as post-doc researcher to 
make a project about in vitro bacteriophages and bacteriocins induction in presence of sub
inhibitory concentrations of different antibiotic classes employed in human and veterinary 
medicine. I was at APC Microbiome Ireland (Scanlan’s group), University College of Cork, and I could 
observe that E. coli- associated prophages were generally stable, considering that the induction was 
strictly dependent on the specific antibiotic used and tested E. coli strain. Considering bacteriocins

during my previous experiments, I found that 
some antibiotics belonging to the fluoroquinolones class, namely Norfloxacin and Ciprofloxacin, at 
low concentration (1 µg/mL) can actually elicit the bacteriocins production of E. coli against other E. 
coli strains. Specifically, I detected this in vitro- colicin (E. coli bacteriocin) production against 
uropathogenic E. coli strains (data not published yet), meaning that this approach might be 
potentially useful to counteract difficult-to-treat E. coli urinary infections just with the use of specific 
antibiotics.

In the future, I would like to continue with this research focus about bacteriophages and 
bacteriocins, which could be used to tackle other clinical important pathogens such as the WHO 
group called ESKAPE (e.g. Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterococcus faecium). Moreover, I would like 
to unravel the AMR issue more in depth. 
Molecular characterization and identification of new resistant mechanisms and determinants are 
my main interests and I hope to perform lab experiments and genome analysis to understand if 
certain resistances are mediated by mobile genetic elements or not.

Whole genome sequencing is another important part of my research, and, I would like to make more

bioinformatics analysis using both short and long-reads sequencing technologies in order to rebuild

plasmids and transposable elements, which are easily involved in AMR gene transmission among diverse

MDR bacterial species at One-Health interface.