Dustin King

Dustin King is an Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. A fundamental characteristic of bacteria is their remarkable ability to adapt to changing environments and maintain metabolic homeostasis. To accomplish this, they continuously decode chemical messages, in the form of metabolites, to sense and adapt to their surroundings. For example, several pathogens sense host-derived metabolites to trigger virulence. Further, bacteria constantly gauge local nutrient levels and adjusting their metabolism accordingly. Understanding how these messages are being sensed is expected to unlock new anti-virulence strategies and enable controlling bacterial metabolism to produce desired products for biotechnology applications. Dr. King’s research focuses on exploring how bacteria sense the essential metabolic gas CO₂ which triggers adaptive physiological responses within diverse bacteria. His lab develops chemoproteomic methods to discover gas sensing proteins at the cellular level and then characterizes the detailed biochemical basis of sensing.