Personal Statement
Professor Holmes is the David Price Evans Chair of Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the University of Liverpool and the past President of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

She is an NIHR Senior Investigator and is an infectious diseases physician by background, with an extensive clinical track record in infectious diseases management, including a clinical fellowship in Boston early in her career. She has longstanding experience in NHS leadership roles, particularly in addressing the prevention of infection and the improving the use of antimicrobials.

She has served in multiple national roles. These include serving as a Department of Health’s national expert clinical adviser, as a member of the Governmental Expert Advisory Committee on AMR and Healthcare Associated Infection for nine years and as a national expert witness for Parliamentary Health and Science and Technology Committees. In addition to serving on a variety of research funding panels and scientific advisory boards She is the past Chair of the Fleming Fund’s Technical Advisory Group (Department of Health and Social Care). She is also a former Board Member of the Wellcome Trust’s Surveillance & Epidemiology of Drug-resistant Infections Consortium (SEDRIC) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Helmholtz Association. She serves on WHO Expert groups related to antimicrobial use, AMR, infection prevention, sepsis, and COVID-19. She is the Director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and AMR and the Centre for Antimicrobial Optimisation (CAMO) at Imperial College London and in 2021 she was awarded an OBE for services to medicine and infectious diseases.

She leads a large international, multidisciplinary infectious disease research programme, including collaborative programmes funded by NIHR, ESRC, UKRI and the Wellcome Trust on the improved management and prevention of infections globally, particularly focusing on the optimising of antimicrobial use through better use of data, infection prevention, the integration of social sciences, the development and application of innovative approaches and technologies for improved diagnostics, precision medicine and clinical outcomes.

Research Overview
Professor Holmes has a successful track record of leading large, multidisciplinary research programmes with a focus on infection and antimicrobial resistance. As well as embracing subjects traditionally associated with Infectious Disease studies, such as epidemiology, molecular bacteriology and public health, the initiatives under Professor Holmes’ directorship have also sought to bridge the gap between medicine and other disciplines including engineering, design and social sciences.

She and her group have conducted leading work in the application of Social Sciences to antimicrobial prescribing and have developed innovative technologies including diagnostics and decision support tools to address infection prevention and management, antibiotic optimisation nationally and globally. Her clinically informed research has influenced local, national and international practice and policy.

Professor Holmes has a large portfolio of international work and in addition to a recently concluded ESRC project with collaborators in India and South Africa, is also a co-applicant on Wellcome Trust-funded projects in Vietnam and Thailand. She has also conducted research on behalf of the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as sitting on number of WHO Expert Advisory Groups and panels looking at Research and Development priorities and Preparedness Response.