Environment

As our key strength at Exeter, we investigate how changes in the environment and the interactions within it can drive antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in pathogens. Real-world-based research also helps us investigate the development of antimicrobials and AMR through the food chain.

Our experts are world leaders, who apply the effects seen within the environment to policy and developing technologies. The team can identify areas and people at higher risk of exposure to resistant pathogens and also the development of resistance over time. This includes the use and spread through livestock from other environments and direct use, leading to exposure in other livestock through streams and soils.

Environment - primary investigators

Name	Role	Keywords
Professor William Gaze	Professor of Microbiology	Environment, policy, microbiome, evolution ecology, public health, agriculture, evidence
Professor Edze Westra	Professor / NERC Independent Research Fellow	Ecological variables, evolution, immune strategies, bacteria, phage, CRISPR
Dr Lihong Zhang	Research Fellow	Antibiotic resistance, molecular microbiology, environmental microbiology, medical microbiology, microbial ecology
Dr Stineke Van Houte	BBSRC Future Leadership Fellow	CRISPR-Cas, bacteria-phage interactions, AMR plasmid spread in microbial communities
Dr Anne Leonard	Lecturer	Environment, policy, microbiome, ecology, public health, evidence
Dr Aimee Murray	Lecturer	Culturing, molecular methods (qPCR, cloning, functional metagenomics), next-generation sequencing, metagenome analyses, evolution experiments
Dr Stefano Pagliara	Senior Lecturer in Microfluidics	Technology development; single-cell response, membrane transport, drug uptake, antibiotic tolerance, ageing
Professor Angus Buckling	Professor of Evolutionary Biology	Evolutionary ecology, antimicrobial resistance
Professor Stuart Townley	Professor in Applied Mathematics	Systems modelling, analysis and management
Dr Michiel Vos	Senior Lecturer Microbiology	Evolutionary ecology, population genomics, bacterial genome evolution, ecology of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes
Professor Sarah Gurr	Chair in Food Security	Antifungals, fungicide resistance, evolution, global movement and stewardship of antifungals
Dr Mario Recker	Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics	Antigenically and phenotypically diverse pathogens, Plasmodium falciparum, dengue, Staphylococcus aureus, mathematical and data analytic frameworks, pathology, evolutionary epidemiology, host-pathogen interactions, gene expression, immune selection