Francesca Short

Francesca completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and her PhD at the University of Cambridge in the lab of Professor George Salmond. Following her PhD she was a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge and Wellcome Sanger Institute, and in 2019 she relocated to Australia to work at Macquarie University with Professor Ian Paulsen. Her work bridges classical molecular microbiology, biochemistry and genomics approaches to build our understanding of how bacterial pathogens adapt and survive, with a particular focus on regulation of virulence factors, and survival stresses outside the host such as disinfectants. Francesca joined Monash University in November 2020 as an ARC DECRA fellow, and became a teaching and research academic in 2023. Francesca is a leader in the Monash Centre to Impact AMR, where she undertakes policy advocacy work focusing on disinfectant use in Australia.

Francesca and her team use a combination of innovative functional genomics and molecular approaches to understand how Gram-negative bacteria control their behaviour, with a view to building fundamental knowledge of pathogenesis and AMR and improving our ability to predict phenotype from genotype.

• Understanding the regulatory networks controlling virulence and antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative pathogens
• Development of new functional genomics approaches
• Molecular mechanisms of antimicrobial biocides
• Mechanisms of bacterial survival outside the host

Uncovering the regulatory networks for Klebsiella pneumoniae iron acquisition

Iron is essential for bacterial growth, but it is severely limited in most environments. Bacteria have evolved clever systems to acquire this nutrient, including siderophores – small, high iron-affinity molecules which are secreted and then taken up in iron-bound form by surrounding bacteria. ¬¬¬The bacterial pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae is a dangerous public health threat that produces up to four distinct siderophores. These molecules collectively determine infection routes and enable hypervirulence. Because they are essential for pathogenesis, they are also attractive therapeutic targets. Understanding how these factors are controlled could help reveal their full range of biological functions and open the way to development of new virulence-subverting drugs.

Functional genomics | Novel regulators | Bioinformatics | Molecular Microbiology 

Exploring the activity of novel virulence regulators in the hospital pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii

Polysaccharide capsule is a critical virulence factor in many bacteria, including the priority drug-resistant pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. The capsule is the first part of the bacterium “seen” by the host and is therefore a key mediator of immune interactions, and a potential target for novel drugs. Despite its importance for infection, very little is known about how production of capsule is coordinated and controlled in this species.

capsule production | novel capsule regulators | RNA sequencing | Bioinformatics