Florey Symposium 2025

We're delighted to invite you to the Florey Symposium 2025. 

The Florey Institute of Infection takes a novel, holistic approach to accelerate research and medical practice into the diagnosis, causes, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). 

Established in 2012, we are cross-faculty, multidisciplinary, research-led and inclusive, strongly committed to taking an integrated approach to the prevention and treatment of pathogenic microorganisms in order to reduce their impact on human health. 

This in-person event, taking place on Thursday 11 September, will feature keynote speakers, examples of research and contributions from external collaborators and organisations, with a focus on our three core themes:

• Pathogen biology, antimicrobial resistance and diagnostics

• Host-pathogen interactions

• Epidemiology and global health

This event is open to academics, students, healthcare workers, public health experts, industry, and policy makers with an interest in collaborative infection related research, offering a fantastic networking opportunity. 

Agenda

08.30 - 09.00: Registration

09.05 - 09.20: Introduction from Prof. Sarah Rowland-Jones and Dr. Claire Turner

Session 1: Pathogen Biology, antimicrobial resistance and diagnostics   

09.20 - 09.50: Dr Sesha Venkateswaran, Queen Mary University of London - ARREST-AMR: Advancing Innovations in One Health AMR Diagnostics.

Co-chairs: Dr. Dave Partridge & Anisha Dhanjal

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global crisis that demands urgent, collective action. Alongside treatments and vaccines, access to effective diagnostics is critical; however, this remains limited despite years of advocacy. A One Health approach, linking human, animal, plant, and environmental health, is also essential, as resistance spreads across these interconnected systems. This talk will introduce ARRESTAMR, a UKRI-funded transdisciplinary network that brings together experts from diverse fields to identify needs, drive innovation, evaluate tools, overcome adoption barriers, and share knowledge, with the goal of supporting the development and implementation of fit-for-purpose One Health diagnostics to help control AMR. ARREST-AMR also supports capacity building and the training of the next generation of researchers and practitioners, ensuring lasting impact across sectors and settings. I will also briefly reflect on my transition from industry as a chemical engineer to academic AMR research - spanning infection-resistant materials, diagnostic assay development, and the building of multidisciplinary research consortia. And how this path has been shaped less by linear planning and more by a combination of intention, opportunity, and serendipity. Together, these experiences inform my current focus on cross-sectoral collaboration to tackle AMR through innovative, context-appropriate diagnostics.

09:50 - 10:45: Short talks

Co-chairs: Prof. Graham Stafford & Anirudh Jakhmola

09:55 - 10:05: Dr. Thomas F Johnson - The global rise of multidrug resistance in bacterial pathogens

10:05 - 10:15: Dr. Josh Sutton - Investigating an alternative mode of cell division in Staphylococcus aureus

10:15 - 10:25: Anisha Dhanjal - Accelerated antimicrobial resistance testing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae in sexual health samples 

10:25 - 10:35: Eleanor Yates - The Development of a Plasma-Activated Hydrogel for Targeted Antimicrobial Drug Release

10:35 - 10:45: Dr. Candice Majewski - Reducing the likelihood of infection - antimicrobial materials for 3D Printing

10.45 - 11.05: Break

11.05 - 11.30: Cross-University Research Centre collaboration: Nucleic Acids Institute - Dr. Ruth Thompson. Chair: Prof Jon Sayers

Session 2: Host-pathogen interactions

11.30 - 12.00: Dr. Phil Spence, University of Edinburgh - Long-lived mechanisms of disease tolerance provide an alternative strategy of acquired immunity to malaria. 

Co-chairs: Dr. Ruth Payne & Nina Perry

Phil studied immunology at Glasgow (BSc) and Cambridge (PhD), where he spent most of his time exploring mechanisms of immune tolerance (how our immune cells ignore harmless microbes and even our own tissues to keep us alive). Phil moved into malaria research in 2008, and more than 100-years after the discovery that mosquitoes transmit malaria he showed that mosquitoes also regulate disease severity. They do this by resetting expression of the virulence genes that allow malaria parasites to adapt to and damage their mammalian host. In 2013, Phil moved to Edinburgh to ask how the host in turn learns to live with malaria parasites. Although not harmless, they can trigger an immune response that does far more harm than good and it is
increasingly clear that children learn to tolerate malaria parasites to minimise their risk of life-threatening disease. It is these mechanisms of disease tolerance that Phil and his team are trying to understand so that they can help develop control strategies that will promote immunity and reduce mortality. Phil is currently Chair of Immunology and Experimental Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and a Visiting Academic at the University of Oxford.

12.00 - 13.00: Short talks

Co-chairs: Prof. Simon Johnstone & Dr. Ben Lindsey

12:05 - 12:15: Dr. Daniel Humpreys - Identification of a novel inhibitor of infection by enteric pathogens enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica

12:15 - 12:25: Hailey Hornsby - Severe SARS-CoV-2 infection drives cytotoxic CD8+ T cell differentiation but induces a long-lived non-exhausted CD45RA+ subset

12:25 - 12:35: Dr. Luke Green - Dynamism of the CD9 interactome during bacterial infection

12:35 - 12:45: Alex Bear - Staphylococcal protein A (SpA) prevents host recognition of key S. aureus antigens resulting in failure of long term effective humoral response

12:45 - 12:55: Dr. Francesca Brown - Investigating an infection role for cellular senescence induced by typhoid toxin

13.00 - 14.00: Lunch/ posters/ networking

14.00 - 14.25: Cross-University Research Centre collaboration: INSIGNEO - Prof. Ipsita Roy. Chair: Dr. Paul Collini

Session 3: Epidemiology and global health

14.25 - 14.55: Professor Rashida Ferrand, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - Co-morbidities in children growing up with HIV - is ART sufficient?

Co-chairs: Prof Thushan de Silva & Justin Salumbides

Rashida Ferrand is a clinical epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. For the last two decades Rashida has been based in Zimbabwe where she established an interdisciplinary research programme focused on infectious diseases (including HIV and TB) as well as chronic non-communicable diseases, across the life-course. Rashida works on strategies to improve outcomes across the HIV care cascade in young people and studies HIV-associated chronic comorbidities in children. She also works on developing optimal screening strategies for sexually transmitted infections. Rashida directs a Wellcome-funded Clinical PhD programme in Global Health in Africa that trains a matched cohort of UK and African health professionals.

14.55 - 15.50:  Short talks

Co-chairs: Prof. Sarah Rowland-Jones & Dr. Hermaleigh Townsley

15:00 - 15:10: Dr. Alex Keeley - The evolution of early life humoral immunity to conserved Streptococcus pyogenes vaccine antigens in a high burden setting

15:10 - 15:20: Prof. Pete Dodd - How much BCG vaccine should countries order?

15:20 - 15:30: Dr. Jack Goodall - Meteorological influences on Streptococcus pneumoniae

15:30 - 15:40: Dr. Kyra Holliday - Safety of and innate immune responses to the novel RH5.1/matrix-M malaria vaccine in UK healthy adults

15:40 - 15:50: Dr. Brian Rice - One method to rule them all? Estimating HIV incidence among women who sell sex in Zimbabwe

15.50 - 16.10: Break

16.10 - 16.35: Cross-University Research Centre collaboration: Centre for Machine Intelligence - Prof. James Marshall and Dr. James Law. Chair: Dr. Tom Darton

16.35 - 16.55: Closing remarks and Prizes: Prof. Thushan de Silva

16.55 - 18.30: Networking and poster viewing

*Please note that MyMuse access is required to sign-up for the event