Research Supervisor Connect
The aim of the project is to define phage-antibiotic activities against intracellular enteric pathogens.
Westmead - Westmead Institute for Medical Research
Shigella infections are becoming untreatable due to the arising of multidrug resistant bacterial strains. Antibiotic efficacy can be achieved with synergistic drug combinations and adjunct phage therapy. For this project we will identify phages against Shigella (pathogen of major public health concern).
The successful candidate will gain skills in the development of phage cocktails, basic phage purification techniques, design of diagnostic tools, microscopy, bacterial mutagenesis, bacterial and phage genomics and epidemiology. Work will involve the use of appropriate cell, tissue and/or animal models. The PhD candidate will also participate in the development of regulatory approvals, when needed.
The suitable candidate will display the following background, skills and experience:
· Biomedical scientist with a good understanding of both molecular and cell biology, especially bacterial genetics and physiology.
· Expertise in bacteriophage, desirable.
· Expertise in classical microbiology techniques (e.g. bacterial growth and identification; sterile technique), preferred
· Experience in cell culture, preferred.
· Experience in basic molecular biology (DNA extraction; PCR; qPCR etc.), preferred
· Experience in bioinformatics or microbial genomics, desirable
Prof Iredell is Professor of Medicine & Microbiology, Sydney Medical School, Director Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, WIMR, Senior Staff Specialist, Infectious Diseases & Microbiology, Westmead Hospital. Prof Iredell is past president of the Australian Society for Microbiology and has served on the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care Multi Resistant Gram-negative Taskforce and on the Gene Technology Technical Advisory Committee of the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator.
Prof Iredell is on the executive committee of the Australian Group on Antibiotic Resistance (AGAR) and heads the Gram-negative Surveillance Outcomes Programme, arm of AGAR. Prof Iredell is the supervising pathologist of the NSW Antimicrobial Resistance reference laboratory at Westmead and leads the bacterial pathogenesis group (AMR, plasmid and phage biology) at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research.
Prof Iredell was the first to use phage therapy in Australia and first in the world to use it systematically in severe sepsis. His team has established methods to quantify phage and bacterial kinetics in vivo and developed high-throughput phage-antibiotic and phage-phage synergy testing in vitro. Prof Iredell has obtained seed funding by NSW Health to develop Australia’s first Microbial biobank and is establishing plasmid and phage collections within this structure.
Dr. Alicia Fajardo-Lubian is a postdoctoral researcher and a NSW Health Research Fellow in Prof. Iredell laboratory. Alicia is an emerging leading and molecular biologist researcher with experience in Molecular Microbiology, Phage Biology and Antimicrobial Resistance. During her undergraduate period, she studied parasite-macrophage interactions (Leishmania spp. 2000-2004, Spain). As part of the PhD and first years of Postdoctoral experience (2004-2012, Spain), she analyzed the molecular basis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the link with bacterial fitness and virulence in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In the last nine years, Dr. Fajardo-Lubian has investigated the evolution of outer membrane changes in a major human pathogen (Klebsiella pneumoniae) and its implication in AMR and bacterial infection and adaptation to human host (The University of Sydney, USyd, and The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, WIMR, Australia). For the past 4 years Dr. Fajardo-Lubian has been working in bacteriophage therapy against multidrug resistant bacteria and phage/bacteria evolution (K. pneumoniae, Shigella, E. coli, P. aeruginosa), with special focus in developing alternative therapies against intracellular pathogens, as extensively drug resistant (XDR) Shigella spp, that are becoming untreatable with common/traditional oral antibiotics. Since 2019, Alicia coordinates the Australian surveillance AMR genomics and genetics program for Gram-negative bacteria of selected isolates (bacteraemia episodes) from the Australian Group on Antibiotic Resistance Gram-negative Surveillance Outcomes Program (40 participating hospitals across Australia. National Surveillance Program, GNSOP).
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 3022