Dr Stephen Kidd

 
Dr Kidd leads a research group in Microbiology at the University of Adelaide. He is also the Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Ecology (ACARE). 

His research group has a specific focus on the fundamental scientific understanding of the bacteria in patients with diabetes that cause chronic foot infections and how particular bacterial cells respond to the physical and chemical assaults directed at them from the human body. These bacteria, during disease, adapt and change to the specific conditions of human tissue such as the skin compared to deeper tissues, such as the bone. A major and global issue in public health is the increasing prevalence of the failure of antibiotic treatment. Dr Kidd’s research is part of the critical advances in knowledge to understand how bacteria can alter the way they grow in response to antibiotics which enable them to avoid the killing action of antibiotics. These unusual cells are the cause of persisting or chronic infections. 

Dr Kidd’s research group employs various novel microbiological techniques together with cutting edge genetic tools to determine the systems that bacteria use to live for prolonged time in human tissues and during chronic infections. What is particularly interesting is that bacteria over a long period of time, generate a diversity of cell types – it is these various types that allow bacterial survival against antimicrobial processes. The ultimate aim of the research is to create new methods for diagnosis and treatment that targets all the infecting, bacterial cell types.