Dr O’Donnell

Dr Samuel O’Donnell and Dr Alessia Lepore bring expertise on how food environment and processing shape how fungi and bacteria survive and persist along the food chain.

Dr Samuel O’Donnell will investigate how changes in their genomes allow fungi to survive preservation techniques. His research combines genomics, evolutionary biology and mycology techniques to help tackle challenges to food safety.

Dr O’Donnell completed his PhD at Sorbonne University. He joins us from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied how transposable elements shape fungal evolution.

Dr Alessia Lepore will study the effect that multiple stressors within food environments have on bacterial pathogen survival and adaptation strategies. She aims to develop a farm-to-fork platform to untangle and monitor in real-time the mechanisms behind bacterial pathogen resistance and infection potential.

Dr Lepore

Dr Lepore’s background is in physics, having gained her PhD in the subject from Roma Tre University. She joins us from her Marie Curie Fellowship exploring how bacteria survive temperature and antibiotic stress at Ecole Polytechnique within the Institut Polytechnique de Paris.

Early Career Fellowships provide outstanding scientists with medium term support enabling them to initiate independent research, acquire new skills and experience and to stimulate collaborations with other scientists.

On the opportunity, Dr Lepore says, “I’m excited to combine Quadram’s microfluidics, sequencing and microscopy capabilities to contribute to innovative research on multi-stressor adaptation. I’m aiming to gain research independence and skills to lead my own research in the future through the fellowship”.

Dr O’Donnell adds “I’m looking forward to accessing the resources and expertise across the Norwich Research Park to make the most of my fellowship”.

Drs O’Donnell and Lepore join our current Quadram fellows – Drs Singh, Lamprinaki, Juodeikis, Bell and Monaco.