DrJulia Sanchez Garrido

I am a research associate working in the Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology (previously known as the Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection; CMBI) in the Gad Frankel Lab. My current research focusses on host-pathogen interactions at the mucosal surface, focussing on the intestine and lungs. When using the gut model I primarily using Citrobacter rodentium, a natural mouse pathogen that infects the colon in the presence of the endogenous microbiota and models pathogenic E.coli infection in humans. These pathogens express a type III secretion system molecular syringe that injects bacterial effectors into the target cells, subverting host pathways and allowing successful colonisation, thus making C. rodentium an invaluable tool to investigate virulence mechanisms, mucosal immunity and host adaptation. Our lung model has focussed on the study of Klebsiella pneumoniae, a leading cause of opportunistic infections in hospital and healthcare-associated settings worldwide which has been associated with increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance. A combination of both models has lead to the development of citrOgen, a universal presentation platform for bacterial antigens (full details and partnership opportunities on the Imperial Technologies portfolio page).

I did my PhD with Dr Avinash Shenoy, where my work was centred on inflammasomes, cell death and nutrient signalling and mainly used tissue culture and cell biology techniques. While I have now incorporated in vivo models to my research, molecular and cell biology are still a main part of research and my interests still lie on the host response to infection.

Outside research I also enjoy taking part and organising science outreach activities, especially those oriented towards families and children, and have been involved in the Imperial Festival, which later became the Great Exhibition Road Festival, since 2018 (first as a participant, later as a coordinator). I was part of the CMBI postdoc association from 2020-2023, where we work together with the principal investigators and the CMBI postgraduate group to make the centre a great place to work, collaborate and do research, and I have also been a postdoc representative for first for the department of infectious diseases (2020-2022), and then for the Department of Life Sciences (since 2022). I am also the current elected chair of the London Infection Network for ECRs (LINE) committee, a network we put together after the COVID19 pandemic made us aware of the lack of communication between postdocs from different research centres and institutions in London despite the geographical proximity.