Kim Lewis (academic)

Kim Lewis is an American researcher, author and academic. He is a University Distinguished Professor and the director of Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University.

Kim Lewis
NationalityAmerican
OccupationResearcher, author and academic
Academic background
EducationB.S., Biology (1976)
Ph.D., Biochemistry (1980)
Alma materMoscow University
Academic work
InstitutionsNortheastern University

Lewis' research is focused on antimicrobial tolerance which limits the ability of antibiotics to eradicate an infection; and on antimicrobial drug discovery.[1]

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,[2] and of the American Academy of Microbiology.[3]

Education

Lewis received a B.S. in Biology in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1980, both from Moscow University.[4]

Career

In 1976, Lewis joined Moscow University as a researcher. He continued working there until 1984, when he applied to emigrate to the USA. He moved to the United States in 1987, where he joined University of Wisconsin as a research associate. In 1988, he left University of Wisconsin and joined MIT as an assistant professor. He left MIT to join University of Maryland, Baltimore in 1994.

Lewis joined Tufts University as a Research Associate Professor in 1997 and taught there until 2001, when he joined Northeastern University. In 2004, he became a distinguished research fellow, and in 2011, a distinguished professor at Northeastern University.[5]

Lewis became a member of Faculty of 1000 in the Pharmacology & Drug Discovery section in 2006.[6]

Research and work

Lewis' research is focused on antimicrobial tolerance which limits the ability of antibiotics to eradicate an infection; and on antimicrobial drug discovery. He discovered that biofilm recalcitrance to treatment is due to the presence of dormant persister cells tolerant to killing by antibiotics. His research further showed that persisters are cells with low level of ATP, which drops as a result of stochastic variation in expression of energy producing components.[7][8] He discovered that acyldepsipeptide (ADEP) kills persisters in S. aureus and other bacteria by activating the Clp protease, forcing the cell to self-digest.[9] A new antimicrobial, lassomycin, that his team discovered from an uncultured bacterium, kills M. tuberculosis, including persister cells, by activating the C1 ATPase subunit of the ClpC1P1P2 protease, causing ATP depletion and death.[10]

In early 2000s, Lewis began working in collaboration with Slava Epstein to solve the problem that uncultured bacteria could not be grown in vitro. They reasoned uncultured bacteria will grow in their natural environment, and developed a diffusion chamber where they are incubated in their natural environment. In a paper published in Science in 2002, they reported growth of uncultured bacteria in a diffusion chamber.[11][12]

Along with his group, Lewis has been involved in antimicrobial drug discovery for over a decade. They developed methods to mine uncultured bacteria for novel compounds. Of especial interest is teixobactin, a novel cell wall acting antibiotic that binds to different precursors of cell wall polymers. This is the first antibiotic that acts without detectable resistance.[13] The paper describing the discovery of teixobactin was the most discussed publication of that year, according to Altmetric.[14]

More recently, Lewis and his group refocused their program on discovery of compounds acting against Gram negative pathogens, and discovered a new class of antibiotics, darobactins, inhibitors of BamA, an essential protein of the outer membrane.[15]

Awards and honors
  • 2009 NIH Director’s Transformative Award
  • 2011 - Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
  • 2013 - Lester O. Krampitz Lecture, Case Western Reserve University
  • 2015 - Honorary Lecture, NYU School of Medicine
  • 2015 - Lecture, Biomedical Research Council of the US Congress
  • 2017 - NIH Director’s Walls Lecture
  • 2018 - Highly Cited Researcher, Clarivate Analytics[16]

Books
  • Bacterial Resistance to Antimicrobials: Mechanisms, Genetics, Medical Practice and Public Health (2001)
  • Persister Cells and Infectious Disease (2019)

References
  1. "Kim Lewis - Google Scholar".
  2. "AAAS Honors Accomplished Scientists as 2018 Elected Fellows".
  3. "This Solver of Scientific Paradoxes Has Been Named a Fellow of the American Association For the Advancement of Science".
  4. "Kim Lewis".
  5. "Kim Lewis - CV" (PDF).
  6. "The Faculty".
  7. Keren, I., Y. Wu, J. Inocencio, L.R. Mulcahy & K. Lewis, (2013) Killing by bactericidal antibiotics does not depend on reactive oxygen species. Science 339: 1213-1216. PMCID: PMC23471410
  8. Schumacher, M.A., P. Balani, J. Min, N.B. Chinnam, S. Hansen, M. Vulić, K. Lewis* & R.G. Brennan*, (2015) HipBA–promoter structures reveal the basis of heritable multidrug tolerance. Nature 524:59-64. (*co-corresponding authors). PMCID: PMC26222023
  9. Conlon, B.P., E.S. Nakayasu, L.E. Fleck, M.D. LaFleur, V.M. Isabella, K. Coleman, S.N. Leonard, R.D. Smith, J.N. Adkins & K. Lewis, (2013) Activated ClpP kills persisters and eradicates a chronic biofilm infection. Nature 503: 365-370. PMCID: PMC4031760
  10. Gavrish, E., C.S. Sit, S. Cao, O. Kandror, A. Spoering, A. Peoples, L. Ling, A. Fetterman, D. Hughes, A. Bissell, H. Torrey, T. Akopian, A. Mueller, S. Epstein, A. Goldberg, J. Clardy & K. Lewis, (2014) Lassomycin, a ribosomally synthesized cyclic peptide, kills Mycobacterium tuberculosis by targeting the ATP-dependent protease ClpC1P1P2. Chem Biol 21: 509-518. PMCID: PMC4060151
  11. Kaeberlein, T., K. Lewis & S.S. Epstein, (2002) Isolating "uncultivable" microorganisms in pure culture in a simulated natural environment. Science 296: 1127-1129. PMCID: PMC12004133
  12. D'Onofrio, A., J.M. Crawford, E.J. Stewart, K. Witt, E. Gavrish, S. Epstein, J. Clardy & K. Lewis, (2010) Siderophores from neighboring organisms promote the growth of uncultured bacteria. Chem Biol 17: 254-264. PMCID: PMC2895992
  13. Ling, L.L., T. Schneider, A.J. Peoples, A.L. Spoering, I. Engels, B.P. Conlon, A. Mueller, T.F. Schaberle, D.E. Hughes, S. Epstein, M. Jones, L. Lazarides, V.A. Steadman, D.R. Cohen, C.R. Felix, K.A. Fetterman, W.P. Millett, A.G. Nitti, A.M. Zullo, C. Chen & K. Lewis, (2015) A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance. Nature 517: 455-459. PMCID: PMC25561178
  14. "A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance".
  15. Imai, Y., K.J. Meyer, A. Iinishi, Q. Favre-Godal, R. Green, S. Manuse, M. Caboni, M. Mori, S. Niles, M. Ghiglieri, C. Honrao, X. Ma, J.J. Guo, A. Makriyannis, L. Linares-Otoya, N. Bohringer, Z.G. Wuisan, H. Kaur, R. Wu, A. Mateus, A. Typas, M.M. Savitski, J.L. Espinoza, A. O'Rourke, K.E. Nelson, S. Hiller, N. Noinaj, T.F. Schaberle, A. D'Onofrio & K. Lewis, (2019) A new antibiotic selectively kills Gram-negative pathogens. Nature 576: 459-464. PMICID: PMC31747680
  16. "Six Northeastern Professors Named to List of Highly Cited Researchers Around The Globe".
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