Personal Statement
Background
I was born in Cambridge, and spent my early years in Liverpool, Washington DC, Istanbul and Ankara before returning to the UK in 1987 to read for my BSc in Biological Sciences (Microbiology major) at the University of Leicester, where I was also awarded my PhD in Immunology on the role of CD4 T cell recirculation and adhesion mechanisms in chronic inflammatory disease. I continued along the theme of CD4 T cell activation/inflammation during my first postdoctoral position in 1996 at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital London, before moving back to the University of Leicester to start work on a Wellcome Trust funded project investigating host immune responses to pneumococcal infection. I have stayed focused on the pneumococcus ever since. I was promoted to Lecturer in Respiratory Infection in 2005, then Reader in 2009 at the University of Leicester. I returned to Liverpool as Professor of Bacterial Pathogenesis in October 2011 at the newly established Institute of Infection & Global Health, where I lead the Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunity group in the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology & Immunology (CIMI), where I am also Head of Department.

Research Overview
I head the Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunity Group in the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology & Immunology. My area of expertise is in host pathogen interactions, in particular cellular immunity to respiratory bacterial infections. My training is in bacteriology and immunology (infection immunology), and in vivo infection modeling. My research group uses these multifaceted approaches to investigate how pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus pyogenes, GBS, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa cause disease and interact with host cellular immunity, in particular in regulation of infection and inflammation. To this end, we have developed clinically relevant mouse models of respiratory and systemic infection to elucidate mechanistic understanding of the disease processes involved and the host immune responses to infection.

As part of these efforts, we also work on the development of novel anti-bacterial therapeutics such as phage therapy, bacterial toxin inhibitors, phagocyte activators and the development of new vaccines through the Liverpool Centre for Global Vaccine Research which I am co-Director. Our research is currently funded by MRC, JPI-AMR, BBSRC, CF Trust, European Commission Horizon 2020 programme as well as by industrial partners.