Obligate intracellular bacteria: From bench to field and bedside
Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Jing Jing Khoo, Dr Jeanne Salje and Dr Richard Hayward.
Obligate intracellular bacteria include a wide range of bacteria with medical and veterinary importance. Rickettsiales and Chlamydiales include numerous important human, livestock and wildlife pathogens. Other members include arthropod symbionts that could be implicated in the control of arthropod disease vectors. This meeting will be the first in the UK having researchers and clinicians from multi-disciplinary backgrounds (from infection biology to ecology) to share the latest insights and generate new research directions linking both pathogens and symbionts.
Programme
The programme, including speaker biographies and abstracts, will be available soon. Please note the programme may be subject to change.
Poster session
There will be a poster session from 5pm on Monday 3 November 2025. If you would like to present a poster, please submit your proposed title, abstract (up to 200 words), author list, and the name of the proposed presenter and institution to the Scientific Programmes team. Acceptances may be made on a rolling basis so we recommend submitting as soon as possible in case the session becomes full. Submissions made within one month of the meeting may not be included in the programme booklet.
Attending the event
This event is intended for researchers in relevant fields.
- Free to attend and in-person only
- When requesting an invitation, please briefly state your expertise and reasons for attending
- Requests are reviewed by the meeting organisers on a rolling basis. You will receive a link to register if your request has been successful
- Catering options will be available to purchase upon registering. Participants are responsible for booking their own accommodation. Please do not book accommodation until you have been invited to attend the meeting by the meeting organisers
Enquiries: Contact the Scientific Programmes team.
Schedule
Chair
Professor Richard Birtles
University of Salford, UK
Professor Richard Birtles
University of Salford, UK
| 09:00-09:05 |
Welcome by the Royal Society & Dr Jing Jing Khoo
|
|---|---|
| 09:10-09:30 |
Talk title TBC
|
| 09:30-09:50 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Barbara SixtUmeå University, Sweden
Dr Barbara SixtUmeå University, Sweden |
| 09:50-10:10 |
Discussion
|
| 10:10-10:40 |
Break
|
| 10:40-11:00 |
Talk title TBC
Professor Lynn SoongUniversity of Texas Medical Branch, US
Professor Lynn SoongUniversity of Texas Medical Branch, US |
| 11:00-11:20 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Ian CadbyUniversity of Bristol, UK
Dr Ian CadbyUniversity of Bristol, UK |
| 11:20-11:40 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Richard HaywardUniversity of Cambridge, UK
Dr Richard HaywardUniversity of Cambridge, UK |
| 11:40-12:00 |
Discussion
|
Chair
Dr Alistair Darby
University of Liverpool, UK
Dr Alistair Darby
University of Liverpool, UK
Alistair is a genome scientist with research interests in the symbionts and pathogens of arthropod pests and disease vectors. From his PhD to present he has worked on non-culture viable microbes and used molecular/genomic approaches to describe and understand the biology of interactions between the host arthropod and the microbial partner. He is Co-Director at the Centre for Genomics Research, University of Liverpool, where he heads the single cell sequencing lab.
| 13:00-13:20 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Lesley Bell-SakyiUniversity of Liverpool, UK
Dr Lesley Bell-SakyiUniversity of Liverpool, UK Until her retirement earlier this year, Lesley Bell-Sakyi managed the Tick Cell Biobank, the world’s largest collection of continuous cell lines derived from ticks and other arthropods, which she co-founded in 2009. Her particular expertise lies in the establishment of continuous cell lines (74 to date) from embryonic, larval, nymphal and adult tissues of a range of tick and insect species, and the propagation and study of viral, bacterial and protozoan pathogens in arthropod cell and organ culture systems. She has worked with intracellular bacteria of the genera Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, Rickettsia, Spiroplasma and Wolbachia. Lesley’s career spans 48 years of research on arthropods and arthropod-borne pathogens of livestock and humans at University of Edinburgh, (1977-2012), the Pirbright Institute (2012-2017) and University of Liverpool (since 2017). She holds degrees of BSc in Biology (Aberdeen, 1976), MPhil (Edinburgh, 1983) and PhD (Utrecht, 2004), and has co-authored >145 research papers. |
|---|---|
| 13:20-13:40 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Ivo ElliotUniversity of Oxford, UK
Dr Ivo ElliotUniversity of Oxford, UK Ivo Elliott completed a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship and DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2019. His research investigated the clinical epidemiology and ecology of scrub typhus in humans, chiggers and rodents and took place in Thailand and Laos. Ivo is now an Infectious Diseases and Microbiology physician based in Oxford and is an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Oxford. His research interests include the ecology of infectious diseases, in particular rodent and vector-borne zoonoses. He is active in the small world of Rickettsial research, supporting PhD students and collaborating with groups across the Asia-Pacific and in the Americas. |
| 13:40-14:00 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Thomas WalkerUniversity of Warwick, UK
Dr Thomas WalkerUniversity of Warwick, UK |
| 14:00-14:20 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Jing Jing KhooUniversity of Liverpool, UK
Dr Jing Jing KhooUniversity of Liverpool, UK |
| 14:20-14:40 |
Discussion
|
| 14:40-15:10 |
Break
|
Chair
Dr Jing Jing Khoo
University of Liverpool, UK
Dr Jing Jing Khoo
University of Liverpool, UK
| 15:10-16:30 |
10 selected posters from ECR
|
|---|
| 16:30-18:00 |
Poster session and reception
|
|---|
| 09:00-09:20 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Marie BuysseFrench National Centre for Scientific Research, France
Dr Marie BuysseFrench National Centre for Scientific Research, France Dr. Marie Buysse earned her PhD in 2022 from the University of Montpellier, where she studied heritable endosymbiotic systems—both obligate and facultative—in ticks. Her research focuses on the mechanisms that sustain tick–microbe associations, their evolutionary dynamics, and the influence of microbial communities on tick biology and vector competence. She is currently based at the MIVEGEC research unit in Montpellier as a CNRS affiliated postdoc, where she continues to investigate host–microbe interactions, now broadening her work to include two additional key factors: wild animal hosts and human-impacted environments. Through an interdisciplinary approach combining fieldwork, laboratory experiments, and bioinformatics, her work aims to better understand the ecological and evolutionary forces shaping tick-associated microbiomes. |
|---|---|
| 09:20-09:40 |
Talk title TBC
Professor Richard BirtlesUniversity of Salford, UK
Professor Richard BirtlesUniversity of Salford, UK |
| 09:40-10:00 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Julien MartinezUniversity of Glasgow, UK
Dr Julien MartinezUniversity of Glasgow, UK |
| 10:00-10:20 |
Discussion
|
| 10:20-10:50 |
Break
|
Chair
Professor Paul Newton
University of Oxford, UK
Professor Paul Newton
University of Oxford, UK
Paul Newton is an infectious disease doctor and ex-zoologist who works on Asian rickettsial pathogens, their history, epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. He has lived and worked in India, Thailand and Lao PDR. With Lao colleagues he set up the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Research Unit, embedded within the Microbiology Laboratory of Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane, Lao PDR, that investigated rickettsial disease within the country.
| 10:50-11:10 |
Talk title TBC
Professor Pierre-Edouard FournierAix-Marseille Université, France
Professor Pierre-Edouard FournierAix-Marseille Université, France |
|---|---|
| 11:10-11:30 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Kayleigh HansfordUK Health Security Agency, UK
Dr Kayleigh HansfordUK Health Security Agency, UK |
| 11:30-11:50 |
Talk title TBC
Dr Zubaidah Ya’cobUniversiti Malaya, Malaysia
Dr Zubaidah Ya’cobUniversiti Malaya, Malaysia Dr. Zubaidah Ya’cob is a Senior Lecturer at the Tropical Infectious Diseases Research & Education Centre (TIDREC), Universiti Malaya, and an entomologist specializing in public health arthropods that transmit vector-borne bacterial pathogens. Her research focuses on disease vectors such as ticks, chiggers, sandflies, and blackflies, with particular emphasis on their biology, ecology, and roles in the transmission of pathogens responsible for scrub typhus, rickettsioses, onchocerciasis, and leishmaniasis. Dr. Zubaidah’s work has generated significant insights into vector-pathogen interactions and transmission mechanisms, supporting more effective public health strategies for disease control and prevention. Her scholarly contributions are reflected in a growing portfolio of peer-reviewed publications and national and international collaborative research projects. |
| 11:50-12:10 |
Discussion
|