Cornell Center for Antimicrobial Resistance Research & Education Fall Seminar Series 2026

Title: Relapsing Staphylococcus aureus Infections: Antibiotic Failure, not just a matter of Resistance

Speaker Bio: Dr Kidd is a teaching and research academic, leading the Bacterial Stress Response research group at Adelaide University. He is also the Director of the One Health focussed and Adelaide-based research centre: the Australian Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Ecology (ACARE). After completing his PhD on the molecular microbiology and gene regulation in Aeromonas hydrophila at the University of Queensland, he moved to the UK working at the University of Birmingham with Prof Nigel Brown, mostly on novel MerR-like regulators with diverse roles in pathogenic bacteria. He set up a research group in Adelaide in 2008 and he has held leadership roles as Associate Dean in Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Science and Associate Head of School for International Engagement (until 2026). His research has a specific focus on the fundamental understanding of the bacterial physiology of specific Staphylococcus aureus that cause chronic infections. His research to date has revealed a new biology of Small Colony Variants, a hidden type of S. aureus cells that are able to avoid antibiotic killing. Current research is aimed at identifying these cells in clinical settings and developing new treatments to remove these from human tissue thereby prevent relapsing infections.