Bacterial epidemiology, evolution and bioinformatics for public health.

Sexually transmitted infections spread silently through populations, but the bacteria causing them often lack genetic fingerprints that would reveal their routes of transmission. The most common bacterial STI worldwide, *Chlamydia trachomatis*, cannot be tracked effectively because existing typing methods are too crude. This leaves critical gaps: do infections move between men who have sex with men and heterosexual networks in London? Are certain strains emerging from specific geographic origins? The same problem applies to *Burkholderia pseudomallei*, a soil bacterium that causes the deadly disease melioidosis and whose global spread patterns remain unknown. This project will develop a more precise genetic typing method—single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis—to answer those questions. The team also maintains the online databases that researchers worldwide use to identify bacterial strains. They will upgrade these databases with map-based visualisation tools and explore whether mobile phone technology can help track infections in real time. If successful, public health agencies could map STI transmission networks with far greater accuracy, target interventions to the right populations, and detect emerging outbreaks earlier. For melioidosis, understanding global spread could help predict where the disease might appear next. The work is applied epidemiology, not fundamental science—its value lies in giving public health officials better tools for surveillance and control.