- Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1970-1971
- Ph.D., Indiana University Bloomington, 1970
- B.A., Monmouth College (IL), 1965
Karen Bush
Professor of Practice Emerita, Biology (Biotechnology)
(she/her/hers)
- karbush@iu.edu
- 812-855-1542
- Biology Bldg. A305
- Office Hours
Education
About Karen Bush
Awards
- AAAS Fellow (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2025
- International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, ISAC Fellow, 2019
- ISC Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award, 2017
- Monmouth College Hall of Achievement Award, 2015
- CLSI Excellence in Standards Development Award, 2015
- ICAAC Lecturer, 2014
- Editor, mBio, 2010-2019
- E. P. Abraham Award for β-Lactamase Research, 2007
- Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology, 2000
- Editor Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy, 1994-2004
Research
Following postdoctoral work, Dr. Bush spent 35 years in the pharmaceutical industry where she began studying beta-lactamases, enzymes in pathogenic bacteria that cause resistance to penicillins and other beta-lactam antibiotics. Her scientific teams identified and/or developed the marketed antibiotics aztreonam (Azactam®), piperacillin-tazobactam (Zosyn®), levofloxacin (Levaquin®), doripenem (Doribax®), and ceftobiprole (Zeftera®). She also worked with medicinal chemistry teams to discover six novel agents that entered human clinical trials. Her research focused on the mechanism of action of penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) and beta-lactamases. She has authored multiple publications describing the classification of these enzymes.
After returning to IU in 2009, she joined the Biotechnology program and established a laboratory to characterize beta-lactam resistance mechanisms in central Indiana healthcare facilities, in collaboration with the IU School of Medicine Pathology Laboratory. Her IU lab has conducted contract research for pharmaceutical companies to characterize the antibacterial activity of new investigational drugs against these resistant bacteria. Six of the agents, ceftolozane-tazobactam, ceftazidime-avibactam, plazomicin, eravacycline, imipenem-relebactam, and cefiderocol have gained FDA approval.
Representative publications
Bush, K. 2025. Past, present, and future perspectives on aztreonam and avibactam. Exp. Rev. Anti-Infect. Ther. 1–14. doi.org/10.1080/14787210.2025.2473047
Zhang Q, Neidig N, Chu T.-Y, Divoky C, Carpenter J, Lee-Hsiao C, Threatt H, Sultana R, Bush K. 2022. In vitro antibacterial activity of cefiderocol against recent multidrug-resistant carbapenem-nonsusceptible Enterobacterales isolates. Diagn. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2022.115651
Theuretzbacher U, Bush K, Harbarth S, Paul M, Rex JH, Tacconelli E, Thwaites GE. 2020. Critical analysis of antibacterial agents in clinical development. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 18:286-298. DOI: 10.1038/s41579-020-0340-0
Bush K, Bradford PA. 2019. Interplay between β-lactamases and new β-lactamase inhibitors. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 17:295-306. doi.org/10.1038/s41579-019-0159-8
Bush K. 2018. Past and present perspectives on β-lactamases. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 62:e01076-18. dx.doi.org/10.1128/AAC.01076-18
Bush K. A Meandering Path from Biochemist to Microbiologist. ACS Infect. Dis. 2018-12-04. DOI: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.8b00261.
Zhang, Y., A. Kashikar, C. A. Brown, G. Denys, and K. Bush. 2017. An unusual E. coli PBP3 insertion sequence identified from a collection of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) tested in vitro with ceftazidime-, ceftaroline- or aztreonam-avibactam combinations. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2017 Jul 25;61(8):e00389-17. doi: 10.1128/AAC.00389-17.
Kao, C., X. Lin, G. Yi, Y. Zhang, D. A. Rowe-Magnus, and K Bush. 2016. Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides with reduced activation of Toll-like receptor signaling have potent bactericidal activity against colistin-resistant bacteria. mBio 7(5):e01418-16. doi:10.1128/mBio.01418-16.
Yigit, H., A. M. Queenan, G. J. Anderson, A. Domenech-Sanchez, J. W. Biddle, C. D. Steward, S. Alberti, K. Bush and F. C. Tenover. 2001. Characterization of a novel carbapenem hydrolyzing β-lactamase, KPC-1, from a carbapenem-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 45:1151-1161.
Bush, K.,G. A. Jacoby and A. A. Medeiros. 1995. A functional classification scheme for β-lactamases. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 39:1211-1233
The College of Arts