Christian Meyer Lab

For patients at St. Jude, cancer is not their only risk. The immunosuppressive nature of chemotherapy and the early development stage of their immune system make these patients at risk for life-threatening infections. Such infections commonly stem from biofilms that can form on medically implanted devices. Biofilms are communities of bacteria that form superstructures and are highly resistant to antibiotics. Complicating matters, these bacteria are already reacting to the chemotherapy before the infection is detected. 

Our lab is interested in understanding the mechanistic basis of how host-directed therapies modify the activity of antibiotics, as well as describing the physiological changes that are induced by chemotherapy in clinical biofilms. In particular, through the lens of electrophysiology, we are examining how changes in membrane potential within a single bacterium propagate across the biofilm to modify the sensitivity of the population.

Finally, our lab aims to investigate the fundamental mechanisms of cell death in response to antibiotics and how these mechanisms relate to the activity of antibiotics being used in patient care. In summary, using a combination of high-throughput screening, machine learning, mathematical models, and live cell microscopy, we are creating a cutting-edge systems pharmacology research program to study and optimize drug combinations used to treat St. Jude patients.

Christian Meyer, PhD, earned his Bachelor of Science in physics from Colorado State University in 2014. He went on to earn his PhD from Vanderbilt University in 2020, where he applied his quantitative background and studied drug–drug interactions in oncology. As a postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder, he studied bacterial electrophysiology and developed novel antibiotic discovery methods, before joining St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as an Assistant Member in 2025. Christian shares many personality traits with Owl from Winnie the Pooh, including Owl's proclivity to use big words he can neither spell nor really define as well as the propensity to engage in long-winded stories to the exasperation of his wife and children.