Our focus is on medical microbiology relating to infectious diseases.

There are probably three main reasons for the citation attention:

“The School is unique in that it is involved in the A to Z of infectious diseases—from DNA molecules to decision-making in field trials.”

1) The post-genome revolution. The availability of genome sequences of microbes coupled with the development of high-throughput "omics" technology has meant that rather than looking at one gene at a time we can have a "bird’s eye" view of them all. It is like suddenly having all the pieces in a 3D jigsaw puzzle—now it is a question of putting all the pieces together to really help us understand what makes them tick. The post-genome era is a revolution in microbiology—just as Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered the microscope and we had the microscopy revolution where we could see bugs, now we have their genetic blueprint and can really understand how they evolve and to have the inventory of the attributes that enable them to cause disease.

2) A better understanding of host-pathogen interactions. Technology has allowed us to have a deeper understanding of not just the microbe, but also how the host responds. This is giving us a true understanding of the events taking place in the battleground of infection.

3) There has been a public and political will to invest in medical microbiology after several recent "bug alert stories," particularly in the UK. Despite advances in the treatment of infectious disease, pathogenic bacteria still represent one of the most important threats to human health worldwide. Many infectious disease agents have never been controlled or have re-emerged as global pathogens, while others pose a new threat. Media and scientific attention have focused on a range of problems, including the alarming spread of antibiotic resistance, the threat of bioterrorism, microbial contamination of food, the global resurgence of tuberculosis, and other emerging and re-emerging infections triggered by lifestyle and political, economical, and ecological changes. Micro-organisms also have a causative role in major diseases, such as cancer (e.g., Helicobacter pylori and gastric cancer and Chlamydia pneumoniae and heart disease). Therefore, the need to gain an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the workings of our old bacterial adversaries to allow design of effective antimicrobials and vaccines is as great as ever.

Not really a deliberate plan to increase the number of staff, but more to be strategically well placed to exploit genomics through key appointments and improved infrastructure. In fact, due to resurgence of microbiology, we have lost several members of the microbiology staff who have gained chair appointments elsewhere.

However, the School has recently had the foresight to make funding available for a chair in "Emerging Infectious Diseases," an area of increasing importance and public concern.

Post-genome analysis of microbes to understand pathogenesis and the evolution of virulence. There is a focus on gastrointestinal infections, a major cause of disease worldwide, but a much-neglected area of research.

The School is an institute dedicated to the study of infectious diseases, particularly tropical diseases, and has always had a strong tradition in microbiology.

Medical microbiology will continue to be important for the next 10 years at least. We will not outwit our old adversaries overnight, and the pipeline to successful antimicrobials and vaccines takes many years.

In the next 10 years we will be in a stronger position to tackle more complex microbial problems such as mixed infections and in particular "our microbial gut microflora in health and disease and differing nutritional status." There are 10 times more bacterial cells in our gut than we have cells that constitute our own makeup, yet we know so little about our gut microflora and probably have yet to even identify 80% of the species. New methodology such as systems biology approaches will vastly improve our understanding of complex systems like the human microflora and host-pathogen interactions during infection.

From the non-infectious disease perspective, microbiology will be increasingly important in industrial processes (e.g., food production and bioremediation).

Also more widely, the future will see major advances in molecular parasitology (e.g., malaria) as the post-genome analysis of these "larger genome" organisms becomes available, mirroring the post-genome microbiology (bacteriology) revolution.

The School is unique in that it is involved in the A to Z of infectious diseases—from DNA molecules to decision-making in field trials. This includes disciplines ranging from molecular biology, immunology, clinical research, epidemiology, medical trials, statistics, field work, health economics, etc. The School needs to maintain a balanced portfolio of research areas to continue its international perspective and reputation in infectious diseases research.

There will be a need to maintain and extend laboratory-based research in the light of the post-genome revolution (not just genome sequences of microbes, but also of man and model organisms such as the mouse) and also to translate the basic work into practical benefits that can be tested in trials.

The long-term implications for laboratory-based research at the School (microbiology, virology, parasitology, immunology, etc.) will be to translate the basic findings into tangible benefits to reduce the burden of infectious disease worldwide.