Speakers
Keynote
Dr Claudia Igler’s keynote will explore the power of bacteriophages as a much-needed solution to antibiotic resistance. Drawing on her work in phage biology and the evolution of mobile genetic elements, Claudia will share how these natural bacterial predators can be engineered and deployed to tackle even the most persistent infections. She’ll highlight how tools like CRISPR can help us design phages with pinpoint precision, and what this means for treating drug-resistant diseases. With clarity, depth, and a touch of humour, Claudia will unpack what we know so far, what’s coming next, and why phage therapy might just be one of the most exciting frontiers in applied microbiology.
Claudia Igler is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, where she investigates how bacteria and viruses interact and evolve. With a background that spans mathematics, biomedical engineering, and microbiology, Claudia’s work sits at the fascinating crossroads of experimental science and mathematical modelling.
Her research centres on mobile genetic elements – such as plasmids and bacteriophages – and how these elements spread, adapt, and shape microbial communities. In particular, she explores how phages (viruses that infect bacteria) break open their host cells – a process known as lysis – and how this is influenced by both genes and the environment. This work has big implications, not only for understanding evolution and microbial ecology but also for the development of phage-based therapies to tackle antibiotic-resistant infections.
Claudia’s journey has taken her from a PhD on gene regulation in microbes at IST Austria, to postdoctoral work on antibiotic resistance at ETH Zurich, and now to her independent research in Manchester. She brings a rare blend of systems thinking and hands-on experimentation to everything she does.