Our Team

The specific aims of my research are to identify and characterise the major players in biogeochemical cycling of the components of trace gases (for example carbon monoxide and methane). I am currently studying the metabolic processes and substrate preferences of microorganisms in volcanic deposits, which are one of the most fertile soils in the world. I analyse the metabolic pathways for key microorganisms by using metagenomic approaches to determine which natural gases they use as carbon sources. For this, I lead sampling campaigns in volcanoes in Chile and the US and incubate volcanic soils with labelled carbon and perform metagenomics to identify the active microbial communities and characterise their function in these soil deposits. I am a member of The Earth and Life Systems Alliance (ELSA) and together with Colin Murrell and Laura Lehtovirta-Morley, we run the ELSA lab at UEA.

We provide top-quality care both for pets in the surrounding area and also for those referred to us by their own veterinary surgeons for specialist investigation and treatment.

In the last 10 years within academia he has collaborated extensively in diverse work cultures across the world and forged partnerships. He is passionate about frugal diagnostics and was part of two such projects, (i) a UK-India Newton project relating to detection of co-selectors of AMR, and (ii) was the coordinator and architect of ARREST-TB, a £4.5M multilateral (UK, India, Russia, Italy and Spain) project to develop TB diagnostics for resource-limited settings. He is the founder of Help to Breathe (with the mission to help hospitals in India) and Nellikani (with the mission to fight hunger in rural India).
He currently works as the Project Manager of Inlightenus a multidisciplinary project between the Universities of Edinburgh, Nottingham and Southampton, funded by the EPSRC (£5M).

He is an Accredited Biomedical Scientist with a particular interest in microbiology. Dr Hammond was educated in Northern England where he grew up and attended the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow to attain his Undergraduate and Masters Degrees. Dr Hammond subsequently completed his PhD at St Andrews in 2016. In the same year Dr Hammond and colleagues won a Longitude Prize Discovery Award. In 2018 Dr Hammond and colleagues spun out a company and took on the role as an Industrial Research Fellow while being nominated and winning the Scottish Life Science Innovation of the Year Award (2018). In 2022 the Royal Academy of Engineers Honourd Dr Ahmmond by naming him Young Engineer of the Year. All of these honours have been surrounding the novel diagnostic technology, SLIC, which is aimed at rapid detection of antimicrobial resistance. 

This allows him to pursue his passion for the development, application, and evaluation of disease intervention strategies in their very broadest sense, bringing him into transdisciplinary collaborations internally and externally to the University.
Much of his research past and present has focussed on researching creative ideas for addressing endemic diseases of livestock – mostly bovine tuberculosis and latterly, bovine respiratory disease (BRD), as a complex of coinfections.
Since joining the University in 2013, he has led on the development of a laboratory model of the cow lung to gain new insights into tuberculosis and BRD, the study of non-tuberculosis mycobacteria, and was recently part of a large European consortium that studied the risk of transfer of antimicrobial resistance across agriculture, livestock, and human boundaries.
He is currently working on the development of a LAMP diagnostic assay for BRD funded by the BBSRC, human oncoviral therapy (especially to bladder cancer) with Professor Hardev Pandha, and innovative design-led approaches to improve infection prevention and control awareness and implementation to reduce reliance on antibiotics, whilst developing collaborative projects in the areas of improved tuberculosis vaccines and in vitro organoid models for their assessment, feline asthma, racehorse lameness exploiting AI approaches, and computerised fluid dynamic modelling of airflow in cattle sheds.
He has decades of experience of vaccine development and licensing for the veterinary sector, including diagnostic test development and validation.
Driven by a One Health, One Medicine ethos his ambition is to make the University of Surrey a centre of excellence for research on BRD and see a new therapy for bladder cancer enter the clinic.

Abel values interdisciplinary collaborative research and has interests and experience in the application of clinical, field, molecular and analytical epidemiology, and One Health approaches to address research questions relevant to animal health and public health in both developed and resource-limited settings. Prior to his current role, Abel contributed to research activities on livestock health, management and production and antimicrobial use practices of animal health professionals in sub-Saharan Africa. Previously Abel was a Research Scientist at the One Health Institute at the University of California-Davis (USA) and at North Dakota State University (USA), where he contributed to research and capacity building activities in the areas of One Health and transboundary animal diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. Areas of specialism: Infectious disease epidemiology; One Health; Hospital-acquired infections and infection prevention and control practices; Antimicrobial use practices and antimicrobial stewardship.

Her key interests are cystic fibrosis lung infection, chronic wounds (primarily diabetic foot infections) and ventilator-associated pneumonia. In all of these contexts, different species of bacteria come together to form slime-encased multicellular biofilms that protect the microbes within from attack by antibiotics, or by the host’s immune system.
Further, in all cases the infecting bacteria find a unique environment whose physicochemistry differs greatly from the environment inside healthy host tissues, or in standard lab culture conditions. Changes in bacterial physiology due to their abiotic and biotic environment mean that it can be very hard to predict, from standard diagnostic lab tests, which antibiotics might be able to penetrate biofilm defences and kill bacteria in vivo. To better understand how bacteria establish chronic biofilm infection in the cystic fibrosis airways, her team built a new lab model of the environment inside the lungs using lung tissue from pigs slaughtered for meat to build realistic cystic fibrosis biofilms in the lab. Her team worked with a microbiological testing company (Perfectus Biomed Ltd) to translate the lab model into a UKAS-accredited platform for antibiofilm drug testing for commercial clients. She has also started building a similar lab model of the biofilms that form on endotracheal tubes, and which cause ventilator-associated pneumonia. She collaborates widely with colleagues to test a variety of novel therapeutics (including antimicrobial polymers, nanoparticles, phage) on biofilms grown in her high-validity host-mimicking models. Freya is also a founder member of the interdisciplinary AncientBiotics consortium. Colleagues from the sciences and the arts and humanities work together to identify, reconstruct and test infection remedies from medieval medical books in the hope of finding new agents to treat antibiotic-resistant infection. The consortium thinks that these historical texts could hold the key to discovering effective new drugs based on the cocktails of natural products present in the plants and other materials used by our ancestors.

Ron’s expertise lies in translational medicine and leadership. He leads the team driving dissemination of the Sepsis 6 treatment pathway and is part of the team responsible for much of the policy and media engagement around sepsis in the U.K. and elsewhere, including the adoption of the 2017 Resolution on Sepsis by the WHO.
At home, Ron’s worked with the NHS over the last 5 years to ensure that, in England, more than 80% of patients presenting with suspected sepsis now receive appropriate antimicrobials rapidly. He’s ever mindful of the perceived conflict, and the synergies and need for collaboration, with the antimicrobial stewardship agenda.

This builds on the close relationship we established with Ashley during our time as the NIHR Diagnostic Evidence Co-operative (DEC) Newcastle. Ashley has extensive experience as chief and principal investigator on several clinical studies. These include two influential studies with the NIHR DEC Newcastle. Ashley has strengthened his national clinical research links through his role as medical lead for COVID-19 vaccine in the North East and North Cumbria, the lead for Infection within the NIHR Clinical Research Network for North East and Cumbria and co-lead of the analytical performance workstream within the COVID-19 National Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Platform (CONDOR).

Kristen currently leads an interdisciplinary research group (the AMR Force) focussed on antimicrobial resistance with more than £10 million of funding from public sources as well as charities and industry. She also directed the first studies applying a counselling style called Motivational Interviewing to veterinarian-client communication. Kristen was the principal investigator for the Global Resource for Online Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM) Learning project which produced the widely used EBVM eLearning site EBVMLearning.org. Her past accomplishments include successfully organising the data collection platform for Canada’s largest livestock research effort through the Canadian Bovine Mastitis Research Network. She is interested in making research more accessible (and accomplish-able) to veterinary practitioners worldwide. Kristen leads an interdisciplinary research group (AMR Force) focussed on antimicrobial resistance and also works on veterinary-client communication as well as evidence-based veterinary medicine.

I moved to the University of British Columbia, Canada, to continue working on this key interaction and whilst there we discovered a mechanism by which virulent Mtb can manipulate host cell death (Journal of Immunology). To look from the side of the pathogen aswell as the host, I moved to Professor Jacob Jnr’s laboratory at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York to learn cutting edge mycobacterial genetics. During my time there as a Howard Hughes funded fellow we elucidated the primary attenuating deletion mechanism of BCG (published in PNAS, cited over 500 times), developed a mutant classification system (Nature Immunology) and took Bill’s student’s phage hunting in the Bronx zoo. Whilst in New York, I also interned at the Nature Medicine office in the Immunology and Infection section. At Imperial College London we tried to try to uncover whether Mtb is dormant (doubtful!) and utilised patient samples to elucidate virulence mechanisms and to uncover the importance of mixed TB infections (published in Emerging Infectious Diseases and NEJM). My move to Surrey was to work in the McFadden lab on many multi-disciplinary projects before setting up my own lab working on TB. Our aim is to understand this complex human disease and to find innovative ways of curtailing this global health threat. Successful awards include the Wellcome Trust valued person award, a current multi-council AMR innovation grant and several multidisciplinary EPSRC project grants.

We have backgrounds in molecular biology, microbiology, genetics, biochemistry, agricultural and environmental sciences. In collaboration with structural biologists, biophysicists, chemists and geologists in particular, we use an interdisciplinary approach to study how prokaryotes influence, and are influenced by, the environment.

Research Interests Microbial metabolism, gene regulation, biosensors, extremophiles, bioleaching, transcriptomics, bacteriophages, plasmids, bacterial conjugation

He led on strategic digital themes across the AHSN Network, sat on his two respective ICS digital boards and was a member of national steering groups for high profile pieces of work including the NHS Empower the Person (NHS App), NICE DHT Evidence Standard Framework, AI Lab Board and the HEE led Topol review. Prior to which Alan’s experience of over 30 years includes strategic exec directorship roles in the multinational MedTech / assistive technology industry (Philips & Tunstall Healthcare) and prior to that had a long career in multinational management consultancy (Partner PA Consulting, PwC and Gemini Consulting).

I am an expert member of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Prescribing, Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (APRHAI) which provides practical and scientific advice to the government on minimising the risk of healthcare associated infections.
I work on projects aimed at reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescribing in primary care. This is important because antibiotics are a scarce resource and evidence indicates that they are often prescribed unnecessarily for uncomplicated acute infections. I am interested in changing the behaviour of patients, so that they consume fewer antibiotics, and the behaviour of clinicians, so that fewer antibiotics are prescribed.
I have a particular interest in qualitative methods and undertaking exploratory research with populations to find out why people behave in a certain way. My previous research has involved both primary and secondary analysis of qualitative data and triangulation of mixed methods data.

I worked alongside industry partners for 4 years, and within industry for 6+ years in customer-facing positions in scientific and medical affairs.

Topics of expertise and interest: Infectious disease (Respiratory, Bloodstream, CNS, Gastrointestinal, Joint infection); AMR/AMS; Sepsis, Acute Kidney Injury (AKI).

Specialties: DNA assays, Medical diagnostics, Biophysical analysis, Data analysis, Organic chemistry, Bioorganic Chemistry, fluorescent DNA sensing, bioinorganic chemistry, molecular modelling. Linear Diagnostics Limited (LDL) is a diagnostics company based on a novel technology that allows wide range of molecular diagnostics tests to be carried out using a simple optical system. The technology provides significant advantages over the current state of the art allowing a more rapid detection of multiple targets using a single simple reagent. Such a solution has applications in a number of high-value sectors including health, food, defence and security. LDL has also established development partnerships with a number of end users including clinical microbiology, food producers and defence medicine.

Her expertise lies in antibiotic misuse and resistance, particularly among ethnic minorities. Her Distinction Masters Dissertation addressed critical issues of antibiotic misuse in these communities, leading to the development of impactful models to tackle the issue. Previously, Dr. Bessadet was a Research Fellow at Keele University and a Lecturer at Staffordshire University. She has consulted for international projects in France, UAE, and Algeria. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she analyzed its impact on populations, and her current research continues to focus on antibiotic misuse among minority groups, incorporating behavioral change theories as interventions.

I implement a highly collaborative multidisciplinary research theme integrating not only medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry but also drug delivery, surface chemistry and artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of antimicrobial agents against multi-drug resistant pathogens.

Currently she runs research programmes on the chemical communication between wheat and the fungal pathogens responsible for yellow, brown and black rust, and on cereal ergot. Her discovery that yellow rust uses wheat volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to germinate and locate stomata led to the development of a biomimetic biosensor that can detected viable spores in-field and in real-time.

Led by Director Stuart Wili, who brings over 30 years’ experience—including senior roles at Burkard Manufacturing Ltd and Burkard Scientific Sales Ltd, and involvement in developing air sampling equipment for NASA—the team combines expertise in electromechanical, electronic, software, and biochemical technologies. Agri Samplers’ engineers are skilled in precision design, CAD, 3D printing, CAM, CNC machining, and the production of specialised air sampling and laboratory equipment. Operating from purpose-built UK facilities with R&D labs, test centres, and on-site manufacturing, the company is an accredited supplier of scientific instrumentation sold and used globally, with proven experience in bringing innovative products to market.

Her research focuses on bacteriophage therapy for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, with a particular emphasis on Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Maria has collaborated with institutions such as Great Ormond Street Hospital and Yale University, including isolating phages for clinical applications, which prompted participation in efforts to inform phage therapy regulations through international collaboration.
She has a strong interest in AMR and in the evolutionary interactions of microorganisms with their predators, their environment, and their opportunistic hosts.

For this reason, new therapies to replace antibiotics are crucial. Due to their rapid doubling time, bacteria have the ability to quickly evolve mechanisms to overcome drugs targeted to them, for this reason, I believe the future for anti-infectives is to target infection at the human cell level. Bacteria enter our cells by “hijacking” parts of our own cell machinery (proteins).Our cells are encased in a membrane consisting of water-repelling fatty acids and proteins. Bacteria have to attach to and breach this membrane in order to get inside our cells. They do this by “hijacking” the proteins within the membrane. Whilst there has been extensive research into how bacteria bind our cells, no universal mechanisms (used by all bacteria) are known. Different bacterial species have been shown to hijack different proteins, which causes problems with therapeutic design. I have discovered that a family of human cell membrane proteins, the tetraspanins, are extremely important in the binding of multiple bacterial species to our cells. Targeting tetraspanins using drugs reduces bacterial binding to multiple types of human cells by greater than 50%. The tetraspanins form part of our cell membranes and act as “organisers”, bringing together lots of other proteins to form large protein “islands” in the cell membrane. Bacteria do not directly attach to the tetraspanins but I hypothesise that the tetraspanins organize the proteins required for bacterial binding and it is therefore the loss of this organization which results in reduced bacterial adhesion to our cells when the tetraspanins are blocked.My lab is interested in investigating the role of these proteins and their interactors in bacterial infection.

An important component of this work is the development of new technologies that enable the fabrication of these devices. Recently, together with collaborators Jonathan Foster (Chemistry) and Patrick Smith (Mechanical Engineering), David has begun developing Reactive Inkjet Printing (RIJ) for multivariate metal organic framework (MOF) gradients, which is hoped can be utilised for advanced sensors. David is interested in developing novel multidisciplinary projects targeted toward biosensor, bioelectronic, biomedical, regenerative medicine and industrial applications (e.g. process monitoring).

She has completed her B.Sc. at Tung-hai University in Taiwan, and gained her M.Sc. degree in Statistics and Ph.D. in Animal Sciences from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Upon completing her Ph.D., she was appointed to the post of Computational Geneticist in the Dairy Science Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she provided statistical and computational assistance to students and faculty staffs, and she also participated in collaborative research in the area of statistical modelling and algorithm development with application to dairy cattle improvement programs. She joined the Section of Epidemiology and Biostatics, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Leeds as a Research Fellow in 2006. She allied with scientists and clinicians on the genetic and epidemiological data analysis of melanoma studies. Ruby joins the RVC as a Lecturer in Statistics in 2009 (commenced as Senior Lecturer, January 2015).

 His research focuses on mathematical and statistical modelling to better understand tuberculosis (TB) epidemiology, burden estimation, and the cost-effectiveness of interventions, particularly in high-HIV prevalence settings. His expertise spans individual-based modelling, drug-resistant TB, paediatric TB interventions, and model calibration methodologies.