Research fellow
Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
Dr Anne Bishop is a research fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge (UK) with Professor Nicholas Thomson's team, with whom Anna Dumitriu has collaborated for two projects focused on the severe diarrhoeal disease of cholera or the sexually transmitted disease of syphilis. Anne’s research is focused on bacteria that cause life-threatening diarrhoeal diseases that make millions sick and kill tens of thousands of people every year, particularly those living in lower and middle-income countries without reliable clean water and sanitation. She investigates the genetic diversity of the bacteria, and their behaviour in the lab, and uses this knowledge for vaccine development. Anne’s PhD was in Human Cell Biology at University College London with Professor Alan Hall (FRS), during which she became fascinated by infectious diseases. For the next ten years she studied the bacteria that cause typhoid or Salmonellosis and then cholera, in two post-doctoral research positions with Professor Gordon Dougan (FRS) at Imperial College London (UK) then Professor Andy Camilli at Tufts University Medical School, Boston (USA). Upon returning to the UK, she briefly worked with her current supervisor, Nick Thompson, supporting the beginnings of his blossoming cholera research program. She took a five-year career break as a full-time Mum to twin boys, then for three years taught undergraduate Biology at the University of Nottingham, where she gained an Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. She was awarded her current ‘returning to research’ Janet Thornton Fellowship in 2020 and is now studying Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, which has evolved from an innocuous gut resident bacteria to cause diarrhoea by acquiring extra DNA encoding toxins. Anne is also passionate about public engagement and takes every opportunity to talk to school children and their families about her research and women’s careers in science, both with the ‘Connecting Science’ team at the Sanger Institute and with Ignite educational charity in Nottingham (UK). She is also currently working with ‘Cambridgeshire Older People’s Enterprise’, to host a series of discussions with older people, in their ‘Talking Together’ program, entitled “Infectious diseases: unveiling the microbial world, disease prevention, surveillance, cures and pandemics”.
