Our researchers

Daire Cantillon

Research Fellow
Santander Knowledge Transfer Grant 2016

I joined the TB group at The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research in 2013 to study for a PhD in mycobacterial pathogenesis. My work focuses on understanding how and why Mycobacterium tuberculosis grows in clumps and how this affects anti-microbial drug efficacy. The development of an in vitro model that better mimics the growth characteristics of M.tb in the lung will improve our chances of discovering new effective drugs for TB. I have presented my work at several UK and European Microbiology conferences and through PubhD. I have also been awarded funds from Santander to travel to Brazil to learn how to isolate antibacterial compounds from Brazilian folk medicines and to build research collaborations towards identifying novel anti-microbial compounds for the treatment of tuberculosis. Now that I have been awarded my PhD I hope to continue my research career working towards novel therapies for mycobacterial diseases.

Alfredo Castañeda-García

Ramon Areces Fellowship for Life Sciences

I worked at The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research in collaboration with the Genome and Stability Centre, University of Sussex and Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBIS)-CSIC, Spain. My research focuses on DNA repair mechanisms in actinobacteria. We have discovered a missing mismatch repair system that operates in mycobacteria, which when abrogated by gene knockout generates a hypermutator phenotype. This may be important for the accumulation of antimicrobial drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the emergence of MDR-TB and XDR-TB.  I have presented these results at National and International meetings and the manuscript was recently accepted at Nature Communications. I plan to continue this work as I build an independent research career.

Elena Hailu

Association of Physicians Links with Developing Countries Scheme

I won funding to work in the TB group at The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research in collaboration with the Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI), Ethiopia. My project investigated the hypothesis that TB pathology might be influenced by Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain diversity. I learnt new skills in macrophage infection models, RNA extraction and ELISAs that enabled me to measure how macrophages and M.tb responded when I infected these immune cells with different M.tb strains. I investigated three different M.tb genetic lineages that are common in Ethiopia. I enjoyed my time in the UK. I learnt new techniques that I can use in Ethiopia to continue this collaboration and to develop my research career at AHRI.

Heena Jagatia

PhD Studentship, University of Sussex

I’m working on a PhD in gene regulation in actinobacteria at The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research and the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex. My project investigates the protein complexes necessary for RNA polymerase to initiate transcription in Streptomyces coelicolor and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. My research focuses on characterising the function of essential accessory binding proteins that influence anti-microbial compound production in Streptomyces and are the target of the first line anti-M.tb drug, Rifampicin. I have presented posters at several UK and International conferences. I hope my work will reveal new insights into the initiation of transcription, an essential and druggable pathway in bacteria. I would like to continue to work in the field of infectious diseases when I finish my PhD.

Kaj Kreutzfeldt

PhD Studentship, National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) 

My PhD was funded by the NC3Rs to investigate human genetic variation that might affect susceptibility to tuberculosis. I identified single nucleotide polymorphisms in genes associated with immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. I disrupted the action of these genes in macrophages and assayed the effects of different polymorphisms on gene function, measuring whether these changes altered macrophage responses to M.tb infection. I presented my findings at National and International conferences. I have recently moved from The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research to Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA where I have started a postdoc on M.tb-host interactions.

Filomena Perrone

PhD Studentship, Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Italy

I am interested in gene regulation in mycobacteria, and I joined the TB group at The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research to expand my expertise working with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. My project, characterising the function of a tetR-transcriptional regulator in M.smegmatis and M.tb, is a collaboration between the WTBSCGHR, Royal Veterinary College and Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”. I have developed fluorescent reporter constructs and used RNA profiling to map the expression pattern and regulon of a transcriptional regulator that is hypothesised to be important for mycobacteria to survive inside macrophages – a key step in the pathogenesis of M.tb. I will continue this work to expand our understanding of host-M.tb interactions, and to hopefully find new strategies to treat tuberculosis. I have shown posters of my work at European and UK microbiology conferences.

Leticia Muraro Wildner
Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, CAPES Brazil

I won funding from CAPES to join the TB group at The Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research to study anti-mycobacterial drug action during my PhD at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil. I am researching the mechanism of action of anti-microbial compounds isolated from Brazilian plants on Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I use M.tb genome sequencing and transcriptional profiling alongside a range of in vitro and macrophage models to map drug efficacy across different M.tb phenotypes and to understand the mode of action of these novel compounds. I have presented my work at European conferences and I won first prize in the University of Brighton poster competition. I plan to continue my research into novel drug discovery for tuberculosis.

Rehab Ahmed

PhD student at the University of Khartoum, Sudan and WTCGHR Fellow

I was funded by the Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research to join the TB group at BSMS for 6 months. My project investigates how the action of lipid-modifying drugs may change the interaction of TB bacteria with macrophages as an innovative approach to finding new drugs for TB. I have learnt a lot of microbiology, cell biology and molecular methods relevant to infectious diseases in Sudan. I’ve enjoyed working here and experiencing the English Summer weather and life in Brighton. I have some exciting findings that I hope to publish and use in fellowship applications to continue my research and build a research career in Sudan.