Professor Robin May MA(Oxon), PhD

• MA(Oxon), Biological Sciences
• PhD (Birmingham), Cell Biology

I am Professor of Infectious Diseases and Director of the Institute of Microbiology & Infection at the University of Birmingham.  I hold an ERC Consolidator Award and a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society.

My early training was in Plant Sciences (University of Oxford) followed by a PhD on mammalian cell biology with Prof. Laura Machesky (University College London & University of Birmingham).  From 2001-2004 I was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow with Prof. Ronald Plasterk at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, working on RNA interference mechanisms.  In 2005 I obtained a Research Council UK Fellowship to establish my own group at the University of Birmingham.  In 2010 I was awarded a Lister Fellowship and in 2013 I was presented with the Colworth Medal of the Biochemical Society.  I currently hold a Consolidator Award from the European Research Council and previously served as a co-director of the NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre, based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

My research interests focus on host-pathogen interactions and, in particular in understanding how some pathogens are able to subvert the innate immune system.  Much of our work is aimed at improving the treatment or prevention of opportunistic infections in patients with impaired immunity, such as HIV-positive individuals, patients in critical care, or people with long-term immune-compromising conditions.

I teach on infectious disease and immunology, recently primarily in the final year module “Human Evolution” and on the MSc programme in Microbiology and Infection

Robin May’s research focuses on the molecular basis of host-pathogen interactions. His group combines high-resolution microscopy with molecular and genetic approaches to probe the events that underlie establishment and spread of pathogens within the body. He has a particular interest in the innate immune response to fungi and in the evolution of virulence in opportunistic pathogens.

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PhD title

Regulation of the actin cytoskeleton.

My group are interested in host-pathogen interactions and, in particular, in understanding how some pathogens are able to subvert the innate immune system.  Most of our work focuses on phagocytic cells, which some microorganisms are able to use as a ‘safe house’ within which to replicate.  We try and understand how such pathogens can survive inside this hostile environment and the effect this intracellular reservoir has on disease progression.

The major focus of our group is on fungal infections, with a particular interest in cryptococcosis.  This potentially fatal disease is caused by two pathogenic species of Cryptococci, Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii, which share a remarkable ability to evade the innate immune system and disseminate throughout the body.  This is thought, in large part, to be the result of natural selection through environmental amoebae, since virulence traits that the fungus has evolved to survive within such predators typically work just as effectively within human phagocytes.