Upcoming Ko Lecture to Focus on ‘A Radical Approach to Antibiotic Resistance’

An urgent and growing health concern, superbugs resistant to antibiotics killed at least 1.27 million people worldwide in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And resistant infections are on the rise.

This pressing topic will be the subject of the upcoming Winston Ko Professorship in Science Leadership Lecture. Squire J. Booker, an esteemed biochemist from Pennsylvania State University, will visit UC Davis for a free, in-person event on Monday, May 15 at 4 p.m. in the ARC Ballroom. His presentation is titled “A Radical Approach to Antibiotic Resistance.”

“Antibiotic resistance is an emerging global health crisis that has the potential to nullify the many treatments for bacterial infections that we have enjoyed for more than 75 years,” said Booker. “In this lecture, I will talk about an emerging mechanism for antibiotic resistance enabled by the Cfr protein and our efforts to inhibit this protein.” 

Research has shown that Cfr can cause resistance to various antibiotic classes. 

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Booker currently serves as the Evan Pugh University Professor of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State. He’s also the Eberly Family Distinguished Chair in Science, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and deputy editor of ACS Bio & Med Chem Au, among many other honors and accomplishments.

“Squire is a fantastic scientist and role model, so I’m happy he’s coming out and giving us a lecture, which I think will be quite interesting,” said Distinguished Professor of Chemistry R. David Britt, who serves as the Winston Ko Chair. “Antibiotic resistance is a huge problem. We’ve overexposed bacteria to antibiotics and there’s a natural selection where they rapidly evolve immunity.”

The Ko Professorship in Science Leadership was endowed by the late professor emeritus Winston Ko and his wife Katy Ko. The endowment honors Ko’s 41 years of service to UC Davis and his leadership in research and education. Ko served as chair of the Department of Physics from 1998 to 2003 and dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) from 2003 to 2013. MPS was one of three separate divisions that eventually united to form the College of Letters and Science. He died unexpectedly in 2019 while hiking with family members in the Big Sur area.  

Britt, who served as chair of the Department of Chemistry under Ko, said he learned new things daily from his late colleague, from high energy physics to academic administration. He described Ko as 100% dedicated to UC Davis and an inspiration to others all around him.

Register to attend the Winston Ko Professorship in Science Leadership Lecture.