Evolutionary dynamics underlying pneumococcal genomic diversity

Nick is a microbiologist interested in pneumococcus, a bacterium usually harmlessly carried in the nasopharynx of many children that is also a common cause of pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis in infants and the elderly. These bacteria vary extensively in the frequency with which they cause disease and their susceptibility to antibiotics and vaccine-induced immunity. Nick's project aims to understand the evolutionary processes that create this diversity through combining information from genomics, molecular microbiology and mathematical modelling. The ultimate goal is to understand how bacterial pathogens are likely to respond to changes in the way we treat or prevent disease.