Steven P Djordjevic
Biography
Steven P. Djordjevic is Professor of Infectious Diseases in the ithree Institute at the University of Technology, Sydney. He research focus is bacterial pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance. His primary interests are in the interactions of molecules secreted onto the cell surface and how they interact with host cell receptors. Molecules playing important roles in attachment, colonisation and invasion of host cells and their downstream effects are key areas. His interests extend to antibiotic resistance, how it evolves and disseminates on mobile elements (plasmids and genomic islands), among complex microbial communities and between human and agricultural reservoirs.
He has active research interests in:
Functional analysis of bacterial adhesins
Post-translationally modified membrane proteins.
Proteases and their role in modifying surface proteins
Moonlighting proteins
Genomic epidemiology
Functional analysis of plasmid and genomic islands
Assembly of complex resistance gene loci in clinically important Gram negative pathogens
Movement of antibiotic resistance genes between humans, food animals and the environment
Predicting and characterising emerging bacterial pathogens
Professor Djordjevic is internationally recognised authority in pathogenic mechanisms used by genome-reduced pathogens known as Mycoplasmas. His Mycoplasma research has broadly focussed on the identification and functional analyses of surface proteins for vaccine development. Specifically he has investigated mechanisms for delivery of subunit recombinant antigens including adjuvant formulation, inoculation route and live attenuated versus subunit vaccine antigen delivery. More recently his research has been directed towards characterising protein surface topography. He pioneered studies investigating how surface adhesins are modified post-translationally and championed the concept that Mycoplasmas can regulate their surface topology by endoproteolytic processing.
Professor Djordjevic also has an extensive track record in the molecular epidemiological analysis of foodborne pathogens. He is a proponent of the ‘One Heath’ concept and has lead teams that have i) characterised complex antibiotic resistance gene loci (CRL) and how they evolve, ii) developed molecular tools to detect and track CRL, ii) undertaken large-scale virulence gene epidemiological studies, and iii) investigated the co-evolution of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes on plasmids. More recently he has led teams using high throughput, next generation genomic sequencing to the study of antibiotic resistance in the Enterobacteriaceae and studied pathogenic mechanisms used by a wider range of Gram negative and Gram positive pathogens using systems approaches.
Research Interest
He has active research interests in:
Functional analysis of bacterial adhesins
Post-translationally modified membrane proteins.
Proteases and their role in modifying surface proteins
Moonlighting proteins
Genomic epidemiology
Functional analysis of plasmid and genomic islands
Assembly of complex resistance gene loci in clinically important Gram negative pathogens
Movement of antibiotic resistance genes between humans, food animals and the environment
Predicting and characterising emerging bacterial pathogens
