Dr. Vasileios Cheras
Dr. Vasileios Cheras
Staff of Professorship for Bioprocess
Starting in 2024 as a post-doctoral fellow in the Panke group, my research focuses on establishing various bacterial infection models in vitro using a hollow fiber system. Hollow fiber reactors, similar to perfusion reactors, allow for prolonged cell cultivation. The reactor's two-compartment membrane separation provides cells with fresh nutrients and compounds while efficiently removing toxic metabolic byproducts.
Within the context of the NCCR AntiResist initiative, we use the hollow fiber reactor to culture bacterial isolates from patients in synthetic media, expose them to diverse antibiotic concentration profiles, and monitor antibiotic efficacy and antimicrobial resistance. By systematically varying synthetic media formulations, antibiotic types, and bacterial strain combinations, we try to simulate specific clinical infection scenarios such as bladder or lung infections. This approach enables comprehensive analysis of the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) of both established and emerging antibiotic therapies. The integration of omics data from these experiments further refines our hollow-fiber infection models, enhancing their accuracy and reliability in mimicking human infections with the goal to reduce reliance on traditional in vivo models.