Professor Trevor Lithgow

EXPERTISE

  • Molecular Microbiology
  • Biological principles for reversing evolution of AMR
  • Bacteriophage as therapeutics

Professor Trevor’s group takes a multidisciplinary view on questioning how bacterial cells function and how they evolve, using molecular biology, cell biology and high-resolution imaging. His research also employs bioinformatics-based approaches to forensically track the evolution of phenotypes such as AMR in bacteria. As they are key controllers of bacterial cell populations, bacteriophages are being studied in the lab to map and understand the principles by which they recognise and kill their bacterial hosts, for use in treating AMR infections.

Professor Trevor Lithgow is the Director of the Monash Centre to Impact AMR and leads the Bacterial Cell Biology lab in the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University. He was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 2010, appointed ARC Federation Fellow in 2008, and ARC Laureate Fellow in 2014. Trevor’s accolades include a HFSP Outstanding Research Medal, the Roche Medal (2004), the David Syme Research Prize (2005), Royal Society of Victoria’s Medal for Excellence in Scientific Research (2017) and ASBMB Lemberg Medal (2020).

AMR FOCUS 

  • High-throughput genetic screens to understand factors relating to evolution and spread of AMR.
  • Studying the bacterial surface proteins that mediate cell-cell contact and biofilm formation.
  • Analysing genome sequence data to understand bacterial and bacteriophage evolution.
  • Mapping bacterial outer membranes for changes in protein composition that cause AMR phenotypes.
  • Solving structures of bacterial membrane proteins and bacteriophages to understand how they function.
  • Surveying local environments to discover new bacteriophages.

IMPACT

  • Knowledge gain from studying fundamentals of bacterial biology.
  • Engineering and training to optimize bacteriophages as therapeutics to treat antibiotic-resistant (AMR) infections in humans and animals.
  • Biological principles for reversing evolution of AMR phenotypes in diverse microbiomes.

LEADERSHIP

  • Director of Centre to Impact AMR