Fellows Seminar - From social bacteria to social policy
Image - B. Bonev
This joint seminar will bring together two different disciplines to showcase two research projects, from the traditional laboratory to the social laboratory.
Structural insights from staphylococcal quorum sensing, a conserved, novel target for virulence attenuation
By Boyan Bonev, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom (2024 Fellow)
Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen capable of causing a broad range of mild to severe infections ranging from skin and soft tissue to bacteraemia, endocarditis and toxic shock syndrome. Staphylococci use pheromone-like communication signals to govern virulence and collective behaviour, known as quorum sensing. We investigate pheromone sensing and maturation as druggable targets, which will allow us to engineer pheromone-like decoy compounds that attenuate virulence and reduce patient morbidity during antibiotic treatment.
The accessor gene regulator in S. aureus is responsible for transcriptional control of the pro-peptide, AgrD, membrane endopeptidase AgrB responsible for maturation of AgrD into the autoinducer peptide (AIP), a two-component response system AgrAC, as well as a number of virulence factors. Targeting the agr processing system at the sensory kinase AgrC has already shown promise and modulating the membrane endopeptidase AgrB offers an unexploited part of the signalling pathway and offers a new druggable target for virulence attenuation.
We use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to investigate the conformational and orientational characteristics of AgrB, substrate AgrD and the membrane complex AgrB2/AgrD. Molecular dynamics simulations are combined with synchrotron radiation CD, X-ray scattering, bacterial physiology and solid state NMR to describe substrate orientation and membrane protein conformation.
Boyan Bonev's USIAS project is entitled Structural insights from Staphylococcal quorum sensing membrane endopeptidase AgrB, a conserved, novel target for virulence attenuation.
Life trajectories in social policy analysis: Navigating public institutions through the lived experiences of vulnerable communities
By Rogério Medeiros, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), Brazil (2024 Fellows) and Nínive Fonseca Machado, Society, Stakeholders and Governments in Europe (SAGE), University of Strasbourg
Understanding the intricate relationship between marginalized communities and public institutions is fundamental to advancing effective and equitable policy design. This talk explores the findings of our research project Family trajectories and public institutions: perceptions and experiences of public policies beneficiaries in a low-income neighborhood in Brazil – which is part of LoCI, a research programme on Lower Classes and Public Institutions, led by Professor Vincent Dubois at the University of Strasbourg - and examines the lived experiences of public policy beneficiaries in a low-income neighbourhood in Brazil. It will offer insights into the nuanced interactions between vulnerable populations and state bureaucratic mechanisms.
Against the backdrop of Brazil's shifting political landscape, the study moves beyond traditional top-down analyses of bureaucratic administration and instead focuses on the perceptions, strategies, and life trajectories of individuals navigating public services. By adopting a relational approach, the research illustrates how beneficiaries' interactions with institutions - whether in education, healthcare, or social assistance - shape their understanding of the state and their social positioning.
A critical finding is that institutional engagements are often mediated by personal encounters, underscoring the role of street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010) and localized networks in shaping access and exclusion. Furthermore, the study reveals variations in how different groups within the lower classes, particularly across gender and socioeconomic lines, experience public policies, providing evidence of systemic disparities in institutional responsiveness. By mapping these interactions through detailed ethnographic fieldwork, this study challenges conventional frameworks that prioritize bureaucratic classifications over personal lived realities. In doing so, it contributes to a more comprehensive and people-centered understanding of public policy implementation, offering essential insights for policymakers and scholars seeking to bridge the gap between institutional design and social impact.
More generally, our study engages with contemporary debates on public policy implementation, including analyses of "bureaucratic encounters" (Goodsell, 1981; Lipsky, 2010), policy reception (Revillard, 2018), and the reproduction of inequalities (Pires, 2019; Brodkin, 1990; Spink & Burgos, 2019). In theoretical terms, it emphasizes the symbolic and material effects of state-citizen interactions (Dubois, 2015), assuming the State as a producer of classification principles, through the combination of relations of force and relations of meaning (Bourdieu, 2015).
