Switch to low bandwidth version Close

Laboratory of Professor Brendan Wren

Research in Professor Wren’s group centres on the molecular characterisation of virulence determinants from bacterial pathogens. These include Campylobacter jejuni, a major food borne pathogen and the leading cause of Guillain-Barré syndrome, Helicobacter pylori, the causative agent of gastric ulcers and associated with gastric cancer, Clostridium difficile, the leading cause of antibiotic-associated colitis and pseudomembraneous colitis, Burkholderia pseudomallei the causative agent of melioidosis and enteropathogenic Yersinia. Individual projects focus on the genetic regulation of virulence (e.g. two component regulatory systems), bacterial-host cell interactions (e.g. polysaccharide surface structures and glycosylation systems and the characterisation of dedicated virulence determinants (e.g. toxins and phospholipases). In collaboration with Sanger Centre staff, we are actively involved in deciphering the genome sequences of  C. jejuni, Clostridium difficile and pathogenic Yersinia. Recent work has focussed on developing innovative technologies to exploit sequence information generated from genome projects. These include mass mutagenesis to determine gene function, transcriptome analysis to gain a overview of the transcription of all genes at a given time point in growth or site of infection and comparative phylogenomics to study the evolution of virulence. More recently, we have adopted a systems biology approach to study host pathogen interactions. The long-term aim is to gain a fully rounded understanding at the functional, transcriptional and translational levels, of the complex and dynamic ways in which these pathogens modulate virulence and interact with the human host. Such a holistic approach will vastly increase the scope for the rationale of design of intervention strategies to reduce the burden of disease cause by these problematic pathogens.

Back to top