Meet the Educators

We will be here during the course, commenting in the discussions from time to time and sharing our expertise with you

At the end of each week, we provide a written summary of the week’s learning. We will also email you with a round-up of the week’s learning and feedback on your ‘Most liked’ comments. We are looking forward to working with you.

Beth Blane

Lead Educator and Developer

I am a Research Assistant in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, and a Health and Care Professions Council registered Biomedical Scientist. I previously worked in the clinical microbiology lab at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. In 2012, I joined Sharon Peacock’s research group in the Department of Medicine, Cambridge. I worked on projects such as the surveillance of carriage and transmission of healthcare-associated bacteria in a long-term health facility, the study of nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus, and most recently the implementation of real-time whole genome sequencing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a clinical setting.

Dr Ewan Harrison

Lead Educator and Developer

I am a microbiologist based at the Wellcome Sanger Institue and the University of Cambridge in the UK. My research focuses on bacterial pathogens and antibiotic resistance.

Dr Francesc Coll

Lead Educator and Developer

I am a computational biologist with expertise in bacterial genomics and clinical microbiology. I joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in July 2016 as a Research Fellow in Prof. Sharon Peacock’s lab funded by a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship. I am currently working in the application of genome-wide association studies in bacteria to identify the genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics and able to cause infections. Since I joined Sharon Peacock’s group in 2014 at the University of Cambridge, I have worked in the genomic epidemiology of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Vancomycin-resistance Enterococcus faecium, two major nosocomial pathogens. In October 2014, I completed my Ph.D. at LSHTM under the supervision of Prof. Taane Clark, which focused on strain genotyping and drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using whole genome sequencing. I have taught in multiple short courses on microbial genomics and antimicrobial resistance.

Dr Narender Kumar

Educator and Developer

I joined Prof. Sharon Peacock’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher in 2016. Since then, I have worked on multiple projects applying genome sequencing as a tool to detect antimicrobial resistance and infer transmission in bacterial pathogens. Particularly, I have worked on the detection resistance from genome sequences of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Staphylococcus aureus. Currently, I am working on optimization of data analysis parameters for accurate and robust detection of transmission in C. difficile in clinical settings. I completed my PhD in 2015 in India working on understanding the adaptive evolution of the human gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori using genome sequencing approaches. I have a deep interest in using genomics to gain insights into the evolution, transmission and spread of bacterial pathogens. I like to teach sequencing data analysis and learn by sharing.

Fahad Khokhar

Educator and Developer

I am a Research Assistant in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, joining Dr. Estée Török’s research group in 2016, with research focussed on screening for multidrug resistant organisms. In 2018 I joined Professor Gordon Dougan’s and Dr Ankur Mutreja’s research groups based at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases and I am currently leading a project of developing a molecular diagnostic assay for the detection of enteric pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes. I am working on both the laboratory and bioinformatics sides, with particular specialism in Oxford Nanopore sequencing and data analysis.

Dr Lilian Musila

International Collaborator and Educator

I am biomedical research scientist with two decades of international research and teaching experience in microbiology, parasitology, human genetics, cancer, virology, and molecular biology. Dr. Musila has worked at KEMRI/USAMRD-A for the past ten years in infectious disease surveillance and research on arboviral and bacterial pathogens. She is currently the principal investigator on antimicrobial resistance surveillance projects which track antibiotic resistance trends, investigate genetic determinants of resistance and virulence and determine the transmission patterns between environmental and animal reservoirs of multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens.

‘Follow’ us, Ewan Harrison, Beth Blane, Lillian Musila, Francesc Coll, Narender Kumar, Fahad Khokhar and track our contributions to discussions by accessing our highlighted profiles.