Karen Bush is a PhD graduate in biochemistry from Indiana University (IU). She spent 36 years in pharmaceutical research before joining the IU faculty to continue her focus on antibiotic drug discovery and development, based on her research on antibiotic resistance mechanisms.
Karen’s major research has been in the area of beta-lactamases, the enzymes primarily responsible for antibiotic resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins and she has been a leader in beta-lactamase characterization and nomenclature. Karen’s research group has studied the mode of action of beta-lactamases and their interactions with beta-lactams. Her laboratory has collaborated with other investigators to characterize key beta-lactamases such as the earliest United States extended-spectrum β-lactamase, plasmid-encoded AmpC cephalosporinases, the first KPC enzymes and other recent carbapenemases in Gram-negative pathogens.
As a scientist at Squibb, Lederle Laboratories, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson, Karen was on research teams that introduced nine anti-infective drugs into clinical trials and developed the antibiotics aztreonam, piperacillin-tazobactam, levofloxacin, doripenem, and ceftobiprole.
Karen is a Professor of Practice Emerita in the Biotechnology Program in IU’s Department of Biology, where she taught courses in research ethics and drug development and regulatory affairs. She led a research group that studied new antibacterial agents and novel resistance mechanisms in carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) found in Indiana. She currently consults for several pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
Karen has published 232 peer-reviewed papers and 27 book chapters, has been a member of the Program Committees for ASM Microbe, the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), and the 2024 ESCMID/ASM meeting, and is currently a member of the Programme Committee for the 2026-2027 IMARI meetings. She has served as an editor of Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy, mBio, Antimicrobial Therapeutics Reviews and EcoSal Plus and is on the editorial boards of four other microbiology journals. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.
In 2015, Karen received the CLSI Excellence in Standards Development Award, and in 2017, the Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award from the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.