My research focuses on identifying, characterising and developing bacteriophages (viruses) that target and kill bacterial pathogens of medical relevance with the view to identifying novel antimicrobials. I have published over 60 papers in both on the fundamental and applied aspects of bacteriophages. Clearly this work has been impacted by our increasing concerns regarding antibiotic resistance because bacteriophages as natural enemies of bacteria can either be exploited as natural viruses, or they may encode novel products with antimicrobial properties.

My work is rooted in an ecological framework which I use both for virus discovery and the manipulation of microbiota associated with disease.  My major focus has been on Clostridium difficile where I have isolated and characterised a large bacteriophage collection, and where I have developed in vitro, ex situ and in vivo models to assess the mechanistic interactions of phages with their bacterial hosts and to assess their therapeutic potential.  I am now developing these phages as therapeutics. I also have active projects to study bacteriophages that target many other bacterial species including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus spp., Borrelia, Haemophilus and Salmonella. 

In terms of my formal education and training, I obtained a BSc in Biology from Dundee University in 1996 an MSc in Biodiversity from Edinburgh University in 1997, and a PhD from Leicester in Molecular Ecology in 2001. I then did 6 years of Post-Doctoral research at the University of Warwick and in Scripps, La Jolla, San Diego.  In 2007 I was appointed as a lecturer at Leicester, in 2011 a Reader and in 2016 I was promoted to Professor of Microbiology.