Salmonella researcher receives European honour

Professor David Holden awarded membership of European Molecular Biology Organisation - News

By Laura Gallagher
Friday 21 October 2011

A leading microbiology expert from Imperial College London has been elected to the membership of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), it was announced this week.

Professor David Holden, who is the Chair of the Microbiology section in the Department of Medicine, is among 46 renowned life scientists from 14 countries across Europe whose excellence in research has been acknowledged by EMBO this year. He has been granted lifetime membership of the Organisation in their 2011 annual round of elections.

Professor Holden's research focuses on Salmonella bacteria, which cause diseases including gastroenteritis and typhoid.

In 1995, his group invented signature-tagged mutagenesis (also known as DNA barcoding), a powerful high throughput technique for genetic screening. Using this, his group discovered the Salmonella SPI-2 type III secretion system - which determines the bacteria's ability to cause disease - and characterised many of the 'effector' proteins that enable bacteria to replicate. More recently, Professor Holden's group identified a switch that triggers the delivery of effectors into host cells. His work has led to the development of a new vaccine for typhoid fever, currently undergoing clinical trials.

Salmonella (green) delivering proteins (red) inside a human cell

Professor Holden said: "It is a great honour to be elected to membership of EMBO. Our research has always been driven by a desire to understand mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis using genetics and molecular biology, and I am very grateful to EMBO for recognizing our work. I have been very fortunate in having a wonderfully talented and committed group of researchers to work alongside over the years; this achievement is as much for their efforts as it is for mine. EMBO is a superb organization that promotes top quality research in life sciences and I look forward to contributing to its activities."

New EMBO members are nominated and elected annually by existing members. EMBO members represent a high-profile cross section of researchers from all fields of molecular life sciences ranging from developmental biology, genomics, molecular medicine, neuroscience and plant biology to systems biology. Fifty-seven scientists from the EMBO membership have received the Nobel Prize.