Research expertise and methodologies

• Antibiotic interaction quantification at scale design and application of assay systems determination of synergy in antibiotic combinations in clinical cohorts, extended to sub-inhibitory interaction measurement.
• Detection and characterisation of heteroresistance: population analysis profiling and PAP-AUC classification, droplet microfluidics for the detection of very rare resistant subpopulations.
• Microfluidics, microfabrication and lab-on-chip development: design, prototyping and validation of microfluidic devices from 3D-printed and cast molds, including multiplex chips for rapid phenotypic AST, biofilm resistance-selection chips, and precision cell assembly platforms.
• Rapid phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing:development of prototype rAST systems to industrial standards, from component design through biological validation, in both academic and company settings.
• Commercialisation of diagnostic technology translation of laboratory diagnostics into products and companies, from invention disclosure and innovation funding through company formation and technical leadership.
• Clinical cohort studies linking diagnostics to patient outcomes: retrospective and prospective study design in bloodstream infection cohorts, integrating susceptibility phenotypes, whole-genome sequence data and clinical metadata to test associations with mortality, ICU admission and treatment failure.
• Phage therapy and phage–antibiotic combination dynamics: quantification of bacterial response dynamics to phage exposure, characterization of phage–antibiotic interactions, and assessment of combination strategies against resistant clinical isolates.
  

Ongoing research projects

Antibiotic interactions in clinical isolates

We develop and apply CombiANT, an assay based on passive antibiotic gradients that makes interaction testing cheap enough to run at scale. Our data show that synergy and antagonism are strain-specific and unpredictable from the individual drug MICs. We run interaction profiles for other groups, and seek collaborators with strain collections or cohorts where combination therapy outcomes are known.

Heteroresistance and its clinical consequences

We study rare resistant subpopulations that survive treatment despite an isolate testing susceptible. Routine testing misses most of them, and in bloodstream infections we find heteroresistance associated with ICU admission, mortality and relapse.

Diagnostics for phenotypes current methods miss

We build the measurement tools this work requires, including droplet microfluidics for detecting very rare resistant subpopulations, multiplex chips for rapid phenotypic susceptibility testing, and deep learning-based read-out of interaction assays. We collaborate on assay development and on applying these platforms beyond our current organisms and drug classes.

Translation into practice

Very interested and somewhat experienced in bringing the lab platforms toward clinical use, in the form of newfound and startup diagnostic ventures