Paul Dyson

As a research microbiologist I am interested in exploiting diverse bacteria for a variety of applications. For several years I have focused on manipulating antibiotic-producing bacteria so that they produce new antibiotics. In recent years, we have repurposed symbiotic insect bacteria so that they can switch off genes in their hosts - this technology is being applied to control insect vectors of disease. In addition, we are also using tumour-targeting bacteria to switch off genes that drive tumour growth.