Imperial’s CBRB appoints new co-directors

Professor Mariagrazia Pizza and Professor Shiranee Sriskandan will lead the Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology (CBRB).

The Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology (CBRB) is an Imperial College London Centre of Excellence which focuses on bacterial discovery research including tackling antimicrobial resistance and emerging bacterial threats.

Its current research priorities include creating novel antibacterial vaccines, identifying new bacterial threats, and harnessing existing knowledge to improve antibacterial therapies, all of which are increasingly important due to the rising global threat of antimicrobial resistance.

The new co-directors, Professor Shiranee Sriskandan from the Department of Infectious Disease and Professor Mariagrazia Pizza from the Department of Life Sciences, will lead an interdisciplinary team of scientists whose expertise ranges from computational and structural biology and data science, to molecular microbiology, innate immunity and experimental molecular medicine.

Professor Shiranee Sriskandan and Professor Mariagrazia Pizza said: “We are delighted to work together to take CBRB into a new era of innovative research to combat Bacterial Resistance in its widest sense, specifically focused on issues of antimicrobial resistance and emerging bacterial threats.”

The new directors celebrated the start of their co-directorship in an internal event on the 18 June.

Meet the Co-directors

Professor Shiranee Sriskandan

Professor Shiranee Sriskandan is Professor of Infectious Disease in the Department of Infectious Disease. She is a world-leading expert on Group A Streptococcal infection, with her research working to understand this pathogen’s effects on populations and individuals.

Her research has informed national and international guidelines on streptococcal infections in hospitals and the community. Many of her lab’s research projects are in partnership with the UK Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) to try and inform national interventions that may improve public health. Her group have been researching group A streptococcal vaccines since 2005 and she is a member of the IVI Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium SAVAC) Executive.

As a practising infectious diseases clinician, she has developed platform studies to research community transmission, and also bacterial and human sample biobanking, to support AMR diagnostics and biomarker research. She is the Royal College of Physicians lead for Sepsis, sits on the NEWS2 advisory group, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Professor Mariagrazia Pizza

Professor Mariagrazia Pizza is Chair in Microbiology in the Department of Life Sciences. She has over 30 years of expertise working on bacterial vaccines and was lead scientist in the discovery and development of the acelluar pertussis vaccine (against Whooping Cough) based on a genetically detoxified toxin. She was also the project leader of the “reverse vaccinology” approach to discover protective antigens of meningococcus B (MenB) from the bacterial genome. The MenB vaccine is currently the only vaccine used to immunise newborn in many countries, including the UK. Over the past years as  Scientific Director at GSK, her research has focused on the structural and immunological properties of several newly discovered vaccine candidates against a variety of pathogens, including Neisseria gonorrhoeae, pathogenic Escherichia coli, Clostridium difficile, non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae. As Head of Preclinical at GSK Vaccine Institute of Global Health, she has contributed to vaccines for neglected diseases such as Salmonella and Shigella.

She is currently an elected member of EMBO, the European Academy of Microbiology and the Academia Europaea, Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Vice Chair of the Bacteriology Division of the IUMS (International Unit of Microbiology Societies) and member of the WHO Product Development for Vaccines Advisory Committee (PDVAC).

The history of CBRB

In 2012 the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Imperial College London funded the creation of the MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection (MRC CMBI). The MRC funding was crucial to the development of CMBI, providing opportunities for groundbreaking research and postgraduate training in the field of bacteriology.

In 2022 the MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection (CMBI) became the Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology (CBRB) and has continued to undertake internationally recognised research in bacterial resistance and immunity across the Faculties of Natural Sciences and Medicine at Imperial College London. The Centre is interdisciplinary and collaborative, with partnerships existing with other Faculties, between Imperial College-associated hospitals, industry and other centres of research excellence.

The members of the Centre take an active part in the teaching and learning activities at Imperial College London and specialise in training young academics and clinically qualified researchers in bacterial pathogenesis to help address the lack of UK-trained expertise in the field.

Find out more about the Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology