After completing my undergraduate research project at the Nestle Research Centre of Lausanne, Switzerland, and receiving a Biology degree from the University of Naples in Italy, I moved to the United Kingdom to undertake my DPhil in Biochemistry and Molecular Microbiology at the University of Oxford. Subsequently, I started postdoctoral fellowships at the Institute Pasteur in Paris, France; the Sir Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford, UK; and the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

I relocated to Norwich, UK, in 2007 to work as a research scientist at the Institute of Food Research (now Quadram Institute), first investigating the molecular mechanisms of acid stress response in Campylobacter jejuni, and later focusing my research interests on the metatranscriptomic and metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiome in response to pathogen infection.

After a career break, I was employed as Team Leader of the LAMP COVID-19 testing lab at Earlham Institute, as part of a National Health Service scheme aimed at weekly testing asymptomatic NHS staff.

I joined QIB Extra as a microbiologist in September 2022.

Key Publications

Le, M & Porcelli, Ida & Weight, Caroline & Gaskin, Duncan & Carding, Simon & van Vliet, Arnoud. (2012). Acid-shock of Campylobacter jejuni induces flagellar gene expression and host cell invasion. European journal of microbiology & immunology. 2. 12-19. 10.1556/EuJMI.2.2012.1.3.

Porcelli, Ida & Reuter, Mark & Pearson, Bruce & Wilhelm, Thomas & van Vliet, Arnoud. (2013). Parallel evolution of genome structure and transcriptional landscape in the Epsilonproteobacteria. BMC genomics. 14. 616. 10.1186/1471-2164-14-616

Le, My & Veldhuizen, Mart & Porcelli, Ida & Bongaerts, Roy & Gaskin, Duncan & Pearson, Bruce & van Vliet, Arnoud. (2015). Conservation of σ28-Dependent Non-Coding RNA Paralogs and Predicted σ54-Dependent Targets in Thermophilic Campylobacter Species. PloS one. 10.e0141627.10.1371/journal.pone.0141627

Searle, Laura & Méric, Guillaume & Porcelli, Ida & Sheppard, Samuel & Lucchini, Sacha. (2015). Variation in Siderophore Biosynthetic Gene Distribution and Production across Environmental and Faecal Populations of Escherichia coli. PloS one. 10. e0117906.10.1371/journal.pone.0117906

Domínguez-Cuevas, Patricia & Porcelli, Ida & Daniel, Richard & Errington, Jeff. (2013). Differentiated roles for MreB-actin isologues and autolytic enzymes in Bacillus subtilis morphogenesis. Molecular microbiology. 89. 10.1111/mmi.12335.