Staff profile

I hold a degree in Biomedical Science and a Master's in Data Science. After completing my MSc at Durham, I continued in the group of Dr. Marcos Quintela-Baluja, where I am currently a PhD student. My MSc thesis focused on analysing methylation signals from Oxford Nanopore long reads using bioinformatics tools. We aimed to examine whether DNA methylation signals can link plasmids with bacterial hosts, based on the hypothesis that methylation motifs found on plasmids carry strain specific information.My PhD research sits at the intersection of microbiology and bioinformatics, focusing on the longitudinal surveillance of WHO priority pathogens. I aim to investigate how genetic traits associated with wastewater neutralisation, as well as their clonal expansion in E. coli strains prior to treatment contributes to the ubiquitous nature of E. coli. MGEs are primary carriers of beneficial genes and contribute via HGT to the dissemination of these traits under selective pressures (antibiotics, disinfectants, and heavy metals). Their maintenance within a host depends on a combination of mechanisms, while resistance genes occasionally confer advantages to the host bacterium.I am interested in observing whether specific MGEs are repeatedly found in the same clonal linages of E. coli over time, thus benefiting targeted future actions against strains conferring resistance to last resource antibiotics.