EPPIcenter Seminar: Kate Baker: Microbial genomics for understanding the epidemiology and management of shigellosis

Dr Kate Baker is researching the genomic epidemiology of enteric bacterial pathogens and their antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent global public health crisis. Microbial genomics helps us understand the transmission of AMR among bacterial populations, and her mission is to harness this understanding to improve interventions for public health. Her group achieves this by studying human enteric pathogens using large-scale genomic epidemiology studies in high-income and low-to-middle-income countries (LMIC), laboratory experimentation, and mathematical modelling. The group has received funding from the Wellcome Trust, Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and National Institutes for Health Research. 

Dr Baker is a Professor at the University of Cambridge. She worked as a clinical veterinarian before  her post-doc at the Sanger Institute and Fellowship at the University of Liverpool. At U of Liverpool she co-directed the Wellcome Clinical PhD programme for Health Priorities in the Global South. She serves as an Associate Editor for Nature's Antimicrobials and Resistance Journal, sits on the WHO's Technical Advisory Group on Vaccines for Antimicrobial Resistance, and serves on various conference committees dedicated to exploring aspects of microbial resistance.