November 17, 2026
Bugged by Resistance: Teaching Machines to Outsmart Superbugs
For every infection they encounter, doctors are often forced to make a bet: wait days to prescribe the best antibiotic while a patient gets sicker, or prescribe a generic one that should work. Unfortunately for us, this bet doesn’t always pay off. Sometimes the pathogen making you sick is already resistant to that antibiotic, thriving now alongside the prescribed drug. So, along with getting diarrhea from obliterating a friendly microbiome, you’re also getting sicker.
What if instead of waiting days for bacteria to grow to find the best antibiotic, we could predict a bacteria’s resistance from its genome within a matter of hours? Our lab builds artificial intelligence (AI) models to do just that. Come join us to learn about the bane of antibiotic resistance and how we use AI to outsmart the superbugs.
Featured Speakers: Dr. Janani Ravi, Dr. Evan Brennan and PhD Candidate Kat Terwelp
Dr. Janani Ravi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Health AI at University of Colorado Anschutz. Janani’s lab (JRaviLab) at CU Anschutz builds computer-based models and tools to help scientists understand how microbes survive in different environments, how some cause disease while others evade drugs, and how our bodies respond to infections. Beyond research, the JRaviLab is passionate about training, mentoring, and making data science and quantitative biology open and accessible to everyone. https://jravilab.github.io
Dr. Evan Brenner is a postdoc in the group with training in computational biology and hands-on laboratory microbiology. He is interested in how microbes evolve to cause disease at the intersection of human and animal health, and his work looks at how microbes can jump to different host species (like us), or gain resistance to multiple antibiotics.
Kat Terwelp, PhD candidate, is a microbiologist-turned-programmer who is interested in how microbes interact with us and each other. Prior to joining the JRaviLab in 2025, she worked as a microbiome researcher at Duke University. Coming from a family of artists, Kat is excited to make microbiology’s invisible world visible via illustration.
Featured Brewery: Green Mountain Beer Company
How This Works
The Buffalo Rose will open at 6:00 p.m. Food and drink service will begin at 6:00 p.m. and the program will begin around 6:30 p.m. Following the presentation, we’ll take a brief intermission for Q + A. We’ll wrap up around 7:45 p.m., but people are welcome to stay a bit longer to chat with the speakers.
Please check out podcasts of Past Talks.