Ellie Allman

Research Assistant

I graduated from the University of Liverpool with a BSc in Microbiology in 2018. I then achieved an MRes in Clinical Sciences, specialising in Clinical Infection and Global Health. One of my projects involved supporting early studies of antimicrobial resistance gene maintenance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa megaplasmids isolated from a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. This inspired me to investigate the evolution of antimicrobial resistance with clinical implications even further.

I joined the Antimicrobial Resistance and Chemotherapy group led by Dr Adam Roberts in September 2020. My research focuses on translational evolutionary biology, in addition to antimicrobial discovery and development. Through our ongoing citizen science project ‘Swab and Send’, and iiCON, we collect and screen environmental isolates for antimicrobial activity in the hope of finding novel antibiotics to combat the growing resistance crisis. I also use a combination of in vitro selection/evolution experiments, molecular biology and bioinformatic analysis to understand the drivers and evolutionary trajectories of antibiotic resistance.