This is a well-established and internationally recognised group, led by Professor David Pearce, who undertake work in the following four key activity areas of activity:
1) Biotechnology (*in collaboration with Applied Chemistry)
- Microbial enzymes as biocatalysts (through our Nzomics Innovation Unit*)
- Novel antimicrobials*
- Microbial diagnostics*
- Microbial induced calcite precipitation
2) Ecology
- Molecular ecology and the microbiome in human health
- Food chains and agriculture
- Environmental microbiology and extreme environments
3) Pathogenicity
- Control of parasitic arthropods
- Virulence determinants in pathogenic streptococci & mycolic acid containing actinobacteria
- Eukaryotic and prokaryotic virology
4) Systematics
- Systematics and taxonomy of bacteria
- Genomics, metabolomics and proteomics of prokaryotes
- Bacterial cell envelope architecture and biosynthesis
The Exploring and Exploiting Microbial Diversity Research Group aims to contribute applied science approaches to underpinning aspects of healthcare and extending understanding of disease processes. We are funded by industry, charities, the European Union and research council grants.
We welcome interest from potential doctoral and post-doctoral researchers interested in working with us.
Facilities
Our research is supported by biochemistry, molecular biology and -omics laboratories with extensive capacity for microbial cell culture.
Key resources include:
- High throughput DNA sequencing platforms, including PacBIO (see NU-OMICS)
- Proteomics facilities
- Bioinformatics infrastructure
- Pilot scale fermentation suite
- Analytical chemistry
- Enzyme discovery, characterisation, development and microbial production for biocatalysis
- Microbial proteomics and metabolomics
- Activation of urease in Bacillus subtilis
- Optimization of microbial induced calcite processes in the built environment
- Microbial ecology (functional diversity and adaptation)
- Environmental microbiology
- Life in extreme environments
- Bacteriophages in microbial communities
- Phage-microbe interactions and pathogenicity
- Modulating communities using bacteriophages
- Viral infections and lipid metabolism
- Host responses to viral pathogens
- Viral triggers of autoimmunity
- Microbial community profiles in the gut in health and disease
- Microbial responses to metal ions as nutrients and antimicrobials
- Cell envelope biology of Rhodococcus (Prescottella) equi and other mycolic acid-containing Actinobacteria
- Ecology and selection of foodborne bacterial pathogens through food chains
- Genomics of foodborne pathogens to understand virulence, stress tolerance and antimicrobial resistance
- Biocontrol strategies targeting key foodborne pathogens by exploiting food chain microbiomes
- Prokaryotic systematics, particularly of the Actinobacteria
- Medical diagnostics, notably for non-tuberculous mycobacteria
- Engineering biology for real-world impact: from scalable synthetic metabolism to microbes for sustainable agriculture
- Microbial ecology of the natural environment (soils, sediments, indoor air microbiome, indoor surfaces/biomaterials, microbial mats)
- The role of carbonate-precipitating microorganisms in CO2 sequestration
- Microbial: textile biohybrids for innovative cleaning biotechnologies
- Microbial transformations in soils for understanding crop protection product degradation
- Microbial persistence in soils for understanding the benefits of engineered strains linked to food security
- Role of the microbiome in health and disease
- Functional analysis of microbial communities
- Virulence evolution in bacteria
- Prokaryotic systematics via next-generation sequencing
- Bacterial cell envelopes: lipoglycans and lipoproteins
- Microbial systematics; Chair, International Committee for Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP)
- The study of adaptive enzyme evolution and harnessing knowledge from in vivo adaptation to inform protein engineering strategies.
- Divergent adaptive evolution of substrate specificity in phospho- and sulfohydrolases in various protein families, in particular the evolution of specificity towards particular sulfated algal polysaccharides such as carrageenan, fucoidan and ulvan in several sulfatase subfamilies.
- Natural and laboratory-enhanced adaptive evolution of enzymes and pathways that degrade xenobiotic compounds, in particular man-made environmental pollutants such as halogenated hydrocarbons and recalcitrant polyolefinic plastics.
- The role of the human microbiome in health and disease
- The role of the respiratory and gut microbiomes in cystic fibrosis
- Environmental Molecular Microbial Ecologist studying the effects of anthropogenic and environmental change on microbial communities within terrestrial and aquatic systems
- Rhizosphere microbiome interactions
- Multiple stressor interactions
- Multitrophic interactions
- Techno-economically feasible bioprocesses enabled by metabolic engineering
- Design and optimise carbon-negative bioprocesses
- Metabolomics using the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap ID-X Tribrid Mass Spectrometer
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