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Dr Gwen Knight

BA MSc MRes PhD

Associate Professor

Room
119

LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom

Tel.
02079272154

I am currently working on a project exploring the interaction between demography and antibiotic resistance prevalence in infection, funded by an MRC Career Development Award. I am also co-Director of the AMR Centre.

I returned to LSHTM in November 2017 with an MRC Skills Development Fellowship to explore the dynamics of antimicrobial resistance using mathematical modelling. Prior to this (2015-2017), I worked at the NIHR funded Health Protection Research Unit on Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance at Imperial College London. I am now involved in the CMMID COVID-19 response. 

My previous role at LSHTM (2012-2015), was as a research fellow, in the TB modelling team, where I was involved in modelling the dynamics of the disease Tuberculosis (TB) and the impact of a range of different control measures from new drug regimens to vaccines. 

I completed my PhD in 2012 investigating various aspects, both modelling and experimental, of the hospital associated bacteria methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)This was completed at CoMPLEX, UCL, with experimental and epidemiological work based at St George's Healthcare NHS Trust. Prior to this, I was awarded a BA in Mathematics from Oxford University, and an MSc in Mathematical Modelling from UCL. This led to an MRes in Modelling Biological Complexity at CoMPLEX.

More information can be found on my personal web page.

Affiliations

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health

Centres

Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases (CMMID)
TB Centre
Antimicrobial Resistance Centre (AMR)

Teaching

I co-organise the AMR Centre Short Course:"Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): a Multidisciplinary Approach".

Research

My research falls broadly into three areas: understanding the dynamics of bacteriophage driven resistance evolution in S. aureus, modelling One Health interventions and data exploration within SEFASI (the JPIAMR project I PI) and my fellowship, which aims to explore the interaction between age, gender and the dynamics of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). I am also interested in developing better methods to support data-guided empiric antibiotic guidelines.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was involved in work to estimate the burden of hospital-acquired infection and settings of transmission, as well as the interaction of COVID-19 with AMR drivers.

At the HPRU in HCAI and AMR at Imperial College London I worked on projects using locally collected data to design better interventions for control of carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae alongside thinking about the fundamental question of where does AMR originate from?

I have a long standing interest in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, specifically the resistant subpopulation (multidrug resistant, MDR-TB). I have been involved in investigating new methods to control the spread (e.g. antiretroviral therapy, potential new TB vaccines) as well as the impact of shortening therapy.

Research Area
Bacteria
Drug resistance
Infectious disease policy
Bayesian Analysis
Disease control
Modelling
Discipline
Epidemiology
Microbiology
Mathematical modelling
Disease and Health Conditions
Infectious disease
Tuberculosis
Hospital acquired infection
Country
United Kingdom
Peru
South Africa
Region
Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)

Selected Publications

Global burden of latent multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: trends and estimates based on mathematical modelling.
Knight GM; McQuaid CF; Dodd PJ; Houben RMGJ
2019
Lancet Infectious Diseases
Quantifying where human acquisition of antibiotic resistance occurs: a mathematical modelling study.
Knight GM; Costelloe C; Deeny SR; Moore LSP; Hopkins S; Johnson AP; Robotham JV; Holmes AH
2018
BMC MEDICINE
The relative fitness of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a modelling study of household transmission in Peru.
Knight GM; Zimic M; Funk S; Gilman RH; Friedland JS; Grandjean L
2018
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE
Estimating the burden of antimicrobial resistance: a systematic literature review.
Naylor NR; Atun R; Zhu N; Kulasabanathan K; Silva S; Chatterjee A; Knight GM; Robotham JV
2018
Antimicrobial resistance and infection control
The Distribution of Fitness Costs of Resistance-Conferring Mutations Is a Key Determinant for the Future Burden of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis: A Model-Based Analysis.
Knight GM; Colijn C; Shrestha S; Fofana M; Cobelens F; White RG; Dowdy DW; Cohen T
2015
Clinical infectious diseases
The Impact and Cost-Effectiveness of a Four-Month Regimen for First-Line Treatment of Active Tuberculosis in South Africa.
Knight GM; Gomez GB; Dodd PJ; Dowdy D; Zwerling A; Wells WA; Cobelens F; Vassall A; White RG
2015
PloS one
Impact and cost-effectiveness of new tuberculosis vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.
Knight GM; Griffiths UK; Sumner T; Laurence YV; Gheorghe A; Vassall A; Glaziou P; White RG
2014
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Shift in dominant hospital-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (HA-MRSA) clones over time.
Knight GM; Budd EL; Whitney L; Thornley A; Al-Ghusein H; Planche T; Lindsay JA
2012
The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy
See more Publications