Kirsten Meyer

Assistant Professor, Biology

Research Interests: bacterial extracellular vesicles; lipid nanoparticle formulations; combination antimicrobials; microbial interactions; microbial biofilms; bacterial specialized metabolites; antimicrobial resistance and tolerance; antimicrobial discovery and development

Biography

Dr. Kirsten Meyer studies bacterial extracellular vesicles and the delivery of antimicrobials to counter resistance. Kirsten completed a PhD in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences from Johns Hopkins University as a Fulbright New Zealand fellow, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University and in the Nodwell lab at the University of Toronto.

Meyer’s interdisciplinary research bridges biochemistry, microbiology, and pharmacology. Dr. Meyer's research group at the University of Waterloo explores microbial communication and competition to advance novel antimicrobial strategies. Currently they are uncovering the biochemical mechanisms behind the packaging of natural specialized metabolites into extracellular vesicles by Streptomyces bacteria, to enable bioengineering of microbial populations. The group also investigates the antimicrobial properties of these vesicles against problematic microbes and then designs bioinspired lipid nanoparticles for the targeted delivery of cocktails of antimicrobials.

Education

  • 2026, Postdoctoral Fellow, Nodwell Lab, Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto

  • 2019, Postdoctoral Fellow, Lewis Lab, Antimicrobial Discovery Center, Northeastern University

  • 2016, PhD in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

  • 2009, BBMedSci Honours, Victoria University of Wellington

Kirsten Meyer

Publications

  • For the full list of Kirsten Meyer's publications, please see Google Scholar.

  • Meyer KJ, Nodwell JR. (2024) Streptomyces extracellular vesicles are a broad and permissive antimicrobial packaging and delivery system. J. Bacteriology 206:e00325 doi.org/10.1128/jb.00325-23

  • Kavianpour A, Ghasempour S, Meyer KJ, Le T, Cai R, Marques PE, Nodwell JR, Freeman S. (2025) Phosphatidylethanolamine is a phagocytic ligand implicated in the binding and removal of apoptotic and bacterial extracellular vesicles. Current Biol 35:4276-84 doi 10.1016/j.cub.2025.07.043

  • Meyer KJ, Nodwell JR. (2021) Biology and applications of co-produced, synergistic antimicrobials from environmental bacteria. Nature Microbiology 6:1118 doi: 10.1038/s41564-021-00952-6

  • Meyer KJ, Taylor HB, Seidel J, Gates M, Lewis K. (2020) Pulse dosing of antibiotic enhances killing of a Staphylococcus aureus biofilm. Frontiers in Microbiology 11:596227 doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.596227

  • Imai Y*, Meyer KJ*, Iinishi A, Favre-Godal Q, Green R, Manuse S, Caboni M, Mori M, Niles S, Ghiglieri M, Honrao C, Ma X, Guo JJ, Makriyannis A, Linaers-Otoya L, Bohringer N, Wuisan Z, Kaur H, Wu R, Mateus A, Typas A, Savitski M, Espinoza JL, O’Rourke A, Nelson KE, Hiller S, Noinaj N, Schaberle T, D’Onofrio A, Lewis K. (2019) A new antibiotic selectively kills Gram-negative pathogens. Nature 576:459-464adoi:10.1038/s41586-019-1791-1.

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