Professor Stephen Cummings, School of Life Sciences

Professor Stephen Cummings' lecture was entitled “Microbial diversity -The ‘dark matter’ of biology”

In his lecture, Professor Cummings explored the role of bacterial communities in clinical samples, showing how a number of common chronic diseases are formed due to the activity of complex microbial communities.  He illustrated how molecular biology has revealed that every environment has a vast astronomical number of bacterial cells containing a diversity of species that may run into millions, all previously unknown. 

He summarised the significance of these discoveries, showing how bacteria are the architects of the biosphere; the biological ‘engine room’ of all the major nutrient cycles. He also highlighted how they remain powerful and effective competitors against humanity, in an ongoing evolutionary struggle.

Professor Cummings is Chair of Microbiology in the School of Life Sciences. He studied for his first degree in Biological Sciences at Plymouth Polytechnic, before undertaking his PhD in microbial physiology at the University of Sheffield.

His interest in the response of bacteria to environmental stress developed during his post-doctoral research which took him to the Rowett Research Centre, Aberdeen, the Department of Biochemistry at UWC Cardiff and the Department of Microbiology, University of Leeds.