Richard Slayden

Dr. Slayden is an Professor of Bacteriology. Dr. Slayden’s laboratory detects and exploits bacterial differentiation into distinct genetically clonal populations optimized for survival, including actively growing, metabolically dormant, hyper-mutable, and altruistically suicidal cells. The Slayden laboratory uses this information in a multi-disciplinary approach to drug discovery and development of preclinical lead compounds with efficacy against targeted bacterial populations, in particular multi-drug resistant M. tuberculosis, F. tularensis, B. pseudomallei and Y. pestis specialized to evading host defenses and drugs. This research allows for targeting of the unique metabolic activities of these bacterial populations.