Breck A. Duerkop, Ph.D.
University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine
Breck Duerkop, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. He earned his doctoral degree in microbiology from the University of Washington in 2008, under the mentorship of E. Peter Greenberg, Ph.D. Duerkop completed postdoctoral research training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the laboratory of Lora Hooper, Ph.D. He joined the faculty of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2016.
Duerkop’s lab studies mobile genetic elements (MGEs), including bacteriophages (phages), conjugative plasmids and transposons. The main goal of his lab is to define how MGEs influence host-microbe interactions and the development of antibiotic resistance in intestinal bacteria. The long-term goal is to define how these processes impact human health. Research projects in the lab and include: 1) studies focused on intestinal pathobionts, including multidrug resistant enterococci; 2) studies on anitphage defense systems in enterococci; 3) metagenomics and other bioinformatic strategies to study phage transduction of DNA in the intestine and its impact on bacterial genome evolution and pathogenesis; 4) development of tools for high-throughput analysis of bacterial insertion sequence (IS) elements in enterococci and the microbiota to understand how IS elements contribute to bacterial genome diversity, selective evolution and host adaptation in polymicrobial communities.