Research and teaching staff

Academic staff

Dr Jonathan Thomas
Senior Lecturer in Microbial Genomics

Module leader for Forensic Microbiology and Microbial Diagnostics. Co-lead for NTU's sequencing facility. Research interests include genomics, antimicrobial resistance and the evolution and molecular epidemiology of staphylococci, in particular Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis.

Dr Gareth McVicker
Senior Lecturer in Microbiology

Module leader for Introduction to Microbiology and Microbial Metabolism & Genetics. Research interests include mechanisms of plasmid stability in enteric pathogens, with a particular focus on toxin–antitoxin systems in enteroaggregative and enteroinvasive Escherichia coli in addition to other pathovars and species.

Dr Samantha McLean
Senior Lecturer in Microbiology

Course leader for MSc and MRes courses in Biotechnology as well as MSc and MRes courses in Molecular Microbiology. Research interests include investigating the efficacy of novel antimicrobial compounds, the development of antimicrobial medical device materials, biofilms and the interaction of bacterial pathogens with small molecules (reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species, carbon monoxide).

Dr Ben Dickins
Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry

Module leader for Bioinformatics and co-lead for the Undergraduate Research Project Module. Co-lead for NTU’s sequencing facility. Research interests include genomics and phage experimental evolution as well as evolutionary theory and modelling of finite populations.

Dr David Negus
Senior Lecturer in Microbiology

Module leader for Applied Microbiology, and Professional Skills in Microbiology. Research interests include developing the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus as a "living antibiotic", the use of bacteriophages and their products as antimicrobials, and bacterial capsule depolymerases.

Dr Jack C. Leo
Senior Lecturer in Microbiology

Module leader for Medical Microbiology. Research interests include bacterial pathogenesis as well as outer membrane proteins and their biogenesis, with a particular focus on autotransporter proteins of Gram-negative bacteria. Current research centres on the structure–function relationship in autotransporters from Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Yersinia enterocolitica.

Dr Jody Winter
Principal Lecturer in Microbiology

Subject leader for microbiology teaching at NTU, and course leader for the BSc and MBiol Microbiology courses. Co-leads the AROM research group with Dr Lesley Hoyles. Research interests include Helicobacter pylori virulence, bacterial membrane vesicles, antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship.

Dr Michael Loughlin
Principal Lecturer in Microbiology

Learning & Teaching Manager.

Professor Lesley Hoyles
Professor of Microbiome and Systems Biology

Module leader for Bioinformatics and Biomaths, and Advanced Bioinformatics. Co-leads the AROM research group with Dr Jody Winter. Research interests include the human gut microbiome in health and disease, systems biology, host–microbe interactions, microbial lipid metabolism, Coriobacteriia, and Klebsiella oxytoca and its bacteriophages.

Dr Maria Rosa Domingo-Sananes
Lecturer in Microbiology
Teaching for Bioinformatics and Biomaths, Advanced Bioinformatics and Forensic Microbiology. Research focuses on combining systems and evolutionary biology to understand the function, architecture and evolution of biochemical networks and genomes. Approaches include computational analysis, mathematical modelling and experimental evolution. Current interests include the evolution of cell cycle control in eukaryotes and of gene content diversity in microbes (prokaryotes and eukaryotes).

Dr Alasdair Hubbard
Lecturer in Microbiology
Main interest is the use of genomics and experimental evolution to understand the development of antimicrobial resistance in clinically relevant bacteria, with a focus on translation from the laboratory to clinical practice. Other research interests include novel mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance and early-stage drug discovery.

Postdoctoral researchers

Eden Mannix-Fisher
Fiona Newberry

Technical support

Kieran Housley

Students

PhD students
Rachel Whelan
Stephen Thompson
Samuel Dawson
Adam Varney
Callum Rimmer (part-time Academic Associate)
James Hall
Ugochi Lydia Ifeanyichukwu
Pallavi Arya (Clinical Research Fellow)
Joshua Dowling
Sagar Batra

Placement students
Nathan Heslop
Roshan Khatri

MBiol students
Amy Mensah
Chantell Maware
Victoria Wootton

MRes students
Vineet Ponnala
Karimunnisa Begum Shaik

Former group members

Thomas Smith-Zaitlik (MRes 2020-2021)
Sara Garnett (MRes 2020-2021)
Shohreh Naderisigoli (MRes 2020-2021)
Sree Thota (MRes 2020-2021)
Dr Lolwah Alsharaf (PhD 2017-2021)
Luke Hamstead (MBiol 2020-2021)
Chandrashekar Kurunakaran Achari (MRes 2019-2020)
Anagha Shamsundar Setlur (MRes 2019-2020)
Dean Hill (MBiol 2019-2020)
Simon Barratt (MBiol 2019-2020)
Daniel Russell (MBiol 2019-2020)
Frazer McCuaig (placement student 2019-2020)
Anubrata Ghosh (MRes 2019-2020)