On Jul. 22, 2024, scientists at ADA Forsyth Institute (AFI) announced they had identified a critical factor that may contribute to the spread of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), shedding light on why these infections are so difficult to combat.

Their study revealed that the dangerous multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogen, Klebsiella, thrives under nutrient-deprived polymicrobial community conditions found in hospital environments. In another study published in Microbiome, AFI scientists discovered that Klebsiella colonizing a healthy person not only have natural MDR capability, but also dominate the bacterial community when starved of nutrients.