Professor Brendan Wren
FRCPath
Professor
of Microbial Pathogenesis
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
Brendan Wren's research interests predominantly involve determining the genetic basis by which bacterial pathogens cause disease. His research group exploits a range of post genome research strategies to gain a comprehensive understanding of how these pathogens function, how they evolve and how they interact with their respective hosts.
A core interest includes studying glycosylation and glycostructures and how this relates to the survival and virulence of bacterial pathogens. An application of this basic research is the development of Protein Glycan Coupling Technology and other glycobiotechnological innovations for the production of recombinant glycoproteins. This has been applied for the development of inexpensive glycoconjugate vaccines for human and veterinary use.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
Brendan Wren is a member of the board of examiners for the MSc in Medical Microbiology (MM) and also lectures and examines on this course.
Research
Current research focuses on:
- Bacterial glycosylation and their role in virulence
- Exploitation of bacterial glycosylation systems for glycoengineering towards novel antibiotic and vaccine design
- Comparative phylogenomics and the evolution of bacterial virulence
Research on individual pathogens include; Clostridium difficile, Campylobacter jejuni, Helicobacter pylori, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Acinetobacter baumannii, Francisella tularensis, Streptococcus pneumonia, Streptococcus suis, Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae, Vibrio cholerae and the enteropathogenic Yersinia.