Ricardo León-Sampedro

Decoding the ecology of bacterial evolution and antibiotic resistance in microbial communities

About me

I study how bacteria survive and evolve in complex communities, with a focus on understanding the emergence and persistence of antibiotic resistance.

My work bridges experimental microbiology, genomics, and ecological theory to address a central question: when do new genetic associations succeed or fail?

Key Publications

Multi-layered ecological interactions determine growth of clinical antibiotic-resistant strains within human microbiomes (2025)

Leon-Sampedro R, et al

Nature Communications

Clinical antibiotic-resistance plasmids have small effects on biofilm formation and population growth in Escherichia coli in vitro (2023)

Brülisauer L*, León-Sampedro R*, Hall AR.

Plasmid

Pervasive transmission of a carbapenem resistance plasmid in the gut microbiota of hospitalized patients (2021)

Leon-Sampedro R, et al

Nature Microbiology

Variability of plasmid fitness effects contributes to plasmid persistence in bacterial communities (2021)

Alonso-Del Valle A, León-Sampedro R, et al

Nature Communications

All publications

Research Interests

Multi-layered ecological interactions determine growth of clinical antibioticresistant strains within human microbiomes. Nat

Ecological Interactions Shaping Genetic Success

How competition, metabolic cooperation, and community structure determine whether antibiotic-resistant strains and mobile genetic elements establish, adapt, or collapse in human microbiomes.

Pervasive transmission of a carbapenem resistance plasmid in the gut microbiota of hospitalized patients. Nat Microbiol.

Evolution and Diversification of Mobile Genetic Elements

The evolutionary mechanisms by which mobile genetic elements diversify across hosts and ecological contexts, from modular assembly to host-specific trajectories that shape later community-level dynamics.

Model-based Inference of Genetic Invasion

How ecological models can be used to infer the processes and constraints that shape genetic invasion in microbial communities, and to predict when communities exclude or stabilise new genetic associations.