Profile

I work with a bacteria called ‘Chlamydia trachomatis‘, which causes the sexually transmitted disease ‘chlamydia’. This bacteria is intracellular, which means that it lives inside our cells. Normally when bacteria invade our cells they get destroyed by a dustbin-like compartment known as the lysosome. But Chlamydia trachomatis is different. This bacteria is able to hijack the usual system that would otherwise destroy it, and instead create its own home where it’s able to replicate and steal essential nutrients from the cell.

Not much is understood about how Chlamydia trachomatis is able to avoid being destroyed by the cell. That’s where I come in! I’m trying to identify proteins that the bacteria produces that enable it to avoid being destroyed in the dustbin-like lysosome.

The more we understand about how the bacteria invades our cells and manages to survive within them, the easier it will be to design and develop effective antibiotics that can be used to treat infected patients and also develop vaccines to prevent other people from being infected.

Working in science naturally means that no two days will be the same! I am mostly in the lab carrying out experiments trying to identify which proteins are involved in bacterial survival. I have the opportunity to use a range of experimental techniques, which always makes the day more exciting! Outside of the lab, I also write reports, analyse data, and read papers about what other scientists are doing.