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Don Whitley Scientific (DWS) is proud to support talented microbiologists through our DWS Travel Grant Scheme, helping researchers attend key scientific conferences around the world. This year’s awardees showcased an incredible range of anaerobic and microbiological research, from understanding Clostridium sporogenes germination to developing CRISPR-based tools to control Campylobacter jejuni.
Here’s a look at some of their work, their discoveries, and the impact that DWS equipment and support had on their research journeys.
Dr. Milena Awad
A Clostridioides difficile endolysin modulates toxin secretion without cell lysis
Postdoctoral Researcher, Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia)
“I attended the 14th International Conference on the Molecular Biology and Pathogenesis of Clostridia (ClostPath 2025) held in Paris, France. I presented a poster entitled ‘A Clostridioides difficile endolysin modulates toxin secretion without cell lysis.’”
“Protein transport across membrane barriers is a fundamental process in cell biology, but large proteins face particular challenges in crossing these barriers. In bacteria, this difficulty is compounded by the complex, multilayered cell envelope, which both protects the cell and acts as a barrier to the external environment. My work focuses on the extracellular release of the large clostridial toxins, TcdA and TcdB from the strict anaerobe, Clostridioides difficile.”
“These toxins are the primary virulence factors driving disease, underscoring the need to understand their release mechanisms to aid human and animal health. Our study further identified the involvement of a lysin in C. difficile toxin secretion, strengthening the evidence for a holin/lysin-based system in the export of these proteins.”
“The Whitley A35 Anaerobic Workstation is essential for culturing and handling C. difficile, a strict anaerobe, and was critical for advancing our investigation in the involvement of a lysin in toxin secretion. I am deeply grateful to my research team at Monash University, the ClostPath 2025 organising committee and to DWS for awarding me the travel grant that together enabled me to present and share this research.”
Lilia Hodge
Exploring the C. difficile Stringent Response
PhD Student, Fagan Lab, University of Sheffield
“My name is Lilia, and I’m a 1st year PhD student in the Fagan Lab, at the University of Sheffield. With funding from the DWS travel grant, I was able to attend my first overseas conference, the 14th ClostPath Meeting in Paris.”
“My project focuses on investigating the stringent response in the anaerobic human pathogen C. difficile. Cases of C. difficile in the UK continue to rise at an accelerating rate, with increasing antibiotic resistance contributing significantly to the upturn. Understanding the underlying biology of resistance and tolerance is key to informing the development of future therapies against the disease.”
“My project aims to fill the knowledge gap surrounding the as-yet uncharacterised stringent response, a ubiquitous bacterial stress signalling pathway that is triggered by amino acid starvation among other diverse stresses, including oxygen and temperature. This makes the Whitley A35 Anaerobic Workstation critical to my work, keeping a constant anaerobic and temperature-controlled environment so my bacteria are only stressed when I want them to be!”
“I have recently characterised novel growth and sporulation defects in mutants without a stringent response, which I was able to present at ClostPath 2025. I had an amazing time listening to the fascinating talks by experts in my field, networking, and exchanging knowledge with others. Attending ClostPath made me feel at home in the scientific community, I gained so much valuable feedback on my work alongside advice from experienced scientists. Presenting my poster gave me the opportunity to improve my confidence and ability to communicate my results, which is invaluable in my development as a scientist. Thank you DWS!”
Anirudh Jakhmola
Targeted engineering of phage to understand phage infection mechanisms
PhD Researcher, University of Sheffield
“My work at the University of Sheffield is based around bacteriophages. Bacteriophages (or phages) are viruses that infect bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance around the globe is rising at an unprecedented rate and phages present an alternate and viable solution to this problem.”
“However, phage research is still largely descriptive, and phage therapy often involves collecting phages from the environment. We want to change that and hence my work involves mutating C. difficile bacteriophages to use them as a tool.”
“C. difficile is an anaerobic pathogen and hence most of my work involves working inside a Whitley Anaerobic Workstation. The workstation enables me to grow the C. difficile properly and then infect them with phages and perform further experiments.”
“I presented my work at ClostPath 14 held in Paris this year in the form of a poster. As one of the few people working on C. difficile phages, my work seemed interesting to quite a lot of people. I had a fantastic experience sharing my work and forming collaborations with other people working on different topics but interested in phage research.”
“Overall, it was an amazing experience to know what people were doing with Clostridia. I am sincerely thankful to my supervisor Dr Rob Fagan, and our entire lab at the University of Sheffield. I also thank Don Whitley Scientific for their DWS Travel Grant which helped pay a part of the travel. I am also extremely grateful for MRC DiMeN DTP for supporting my attendance to the conference.”
Anne Williams
Insights into spore germination: Live spore imaging in C. sporogenes
PhD Researcher, Materials and Biological Physics Research Cluster, University of Nottingham
“My name is Anne Williams and this is my third DWS travel award! This time, DWS helped me travel to Paris for the ClostPath conference. There, I presented a poster detailing my work on understanding Clostridium sporogenes spore germination using live cell imaging. I presented an awesome new phenotype that has to do with how a spore rehydrates and a simple way to prepare a sample within a Whitley A35 Anaerobic Workstation and then transfer those anaerobic conditions to a microscope for live cell imaging.”
“This conference also consisted of an awesome ECR event in which I was able to make many new friends and scientific connections. Especially as this was the last conference of my PhD, I am extremely grateful for the support from Don Whitley Scientific for this conference and throughout my PhD.”
Abigail Roberts
AFM to probe structures involved in Clostridium sporogenes germination
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sheffield
“I am a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sheffield in the Hobbs, Bullough, and Fagan labs. My project focuses on the use of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to analyse structures involved in Clostridium sporogenes germination, the process by which dormant bacterial spores release active vegetative cells. The DWS travel grant helped me to travel to ClostPath 2025 at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France.”
“I had the opportunity to present my work on the use of AFM to probe structures involved in Clostridium sporogenes germination via a poster. Because C. sporogenes is an obligate anaerobe, I grow all my cultures for both vegetative cells and spore preparations in our Whitley Anaerobic Workstation. AFM can then be performed on a variety of samples including fixed vegetative cells, fixed germinating spores, and isolated protein structures, revealing their detailed topography.”
“I had really insightful conversations at the conference about the advantages of AFM in understanding the process of germination. It was great that Don Whitley facilitated both the research itself and the ability to share it with others in the field of Clostridia. It was also fantastic to see that there were other researchers there that were supported by Don Whitley and that at the Don Whitley booth, they had a number of small printed versions of the posters that they had supported! It was really interesting to learn about the diversity of projects that were all using Don Whitley equipment.”
Jidapha Fa-Arun
Guided Biotics for the control of Campylobacter jejuni in food production
Research Scientist, Folium Science
“My research at Folium Science focuses on developing an innovative solution to combat Campylobacter in poultry, a major cause of foodborne illness worldwide. At the core of this work is Guided Biotics® technology, which harnesses the power of CRISPR-Cas systems to precisely control Campylobacter jejuni. Guided Biotics® are sequence-specific biocontrol agents that target the C. jejuni genome with exceptional precision while causing minimal disruption to the surrounding gut microbiota.”
“As part of this project, we constructed and characterised shuttle plasmids for C. jejuni and successfully demonstrated their delivery through horizontal gene transfer, using Escherichia coli as a donor strain. Since Campylobacter is a microaerophilic bacterium that cannot tolerate atmospheric oxygen, cultivation under controlled conditions is essential. The Whitley A35 Anaerobic Workstation, operating with a gas mixture containing 5% oxygen, played a crucial role in maintaining the optimal environment for C. jejuni growth.”
“Our experiments showed a 2–4 log reduction in viable transconjugants (colony-forming units, CFU) of C. jejuni strain M1 treated with Guided Biotics® compared to the control plasmid. This significant reduction highlights the potential of Guided Biotics® as a precise and effective biocontrol tool against C. jejuni. The next stage of this research will focus on in vivo validation, assessing the efficacy and safety of the technology in real-world poultry systems.”
“Beyond its immediate application, this technology represents a scalable and sustainable approach to reducing Campylobacter prevalence in poultry. By doing so, it contributes to tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), improving food safety, and supporting the future of sustainable agriculture. Finally, I would like to extend my gratitude to Don Whitley Scientific for their support through a travel grant, which enabled me to present this work at the CampyUK 2025 conference.”
Supporting Discovery, Innovation, and Collaboration
From Paris to the UK, and from spore biology to CRISPR technology, the DWS Travel Grant recipients represent the very best of scientific exploration. DWS is proud to help facilitate their discoveries, not only through travel support but through the trusted anaerobic workstations and equipment that make such research possible.
We congratulate all of our awardees for their outstanding work and look forward to seeing where their research takes them next.
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