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Recognising, and adapting to, a new era of microbiological challenges and anticipating solutions to future problems are the tenets of todays applied microbiologist.
Many of us are researching ways to improve human health by discovering new treatments and novel ways of making chemicals and medicines. Others are investigating safe, secure and sustainable food production; ways to protect our environment and provide safe drinking water whilst at the same time, promoting the one health approach. The list goes on.
Microbiology is more than just a day job: we are all seeking to understand how biological processes work in our tiny friends and then hone our skills to achieve the impossible with the invisible.
Collaboration is key to our discipline and this collaboration, like the microbes themselves, cannot recognise geographical boundaries. They must cross continents, languages and many other barriers in order to have real global impact.
We hope the SfAM International Applied Microbiology Conference will contribute to this new era of collaboration and communication. It has been organised by a group of international scientists for a global audience and in its free-to-all and virtual form, enables collaboration and attendance like no other SfAM event.
But the event will only be effective with the right audience – so register today and actively participate to help us help you to make new connections, gain new skills and advance the science of applied microbiology.
Be sure to check back (and maybe even bookmark this page), as we will be adding even more to the programme.
This event is CPD certified, and attendees will recieve a certificate via email after the event. You must book and fully attend at least one of the workshop/panel discussion sessions throughout the conference to obtain your certificate. We will not be able to make exceptions.
International Conference Committee
Mitesh Shrestha
Mitesh holds an M.Sc. degree in Biotechnology from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He is currently the Research Coordinator at Research Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology (RIBB), Nepal. Apart from research, he also devotes some of his time to academia as an adjunct lecturer for molecular biology and genetic engineering at the Central Department of Biotechnology, Tribhuvan University. He has received several national and international research grants to focus on antimicrobial resistance as well as neglected tropical diseases such as Leishmaniasis. His current research focuses on understanding the prevalence and distribution of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in raw fruits and vegetables.
Zina Alfahl
Zina joined the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast, UK in September 2018 to purse her PhD degree in the relationship between airway microbiome composition, inflammation and clinical outcomes in patients with Bronchiectasis. In 2018, Zina acquired a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacy from Al Ain University of Science and Technology, UAE. In 2019, she was awarded the Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) award. Zina is currently the Postgraduate Chair and acting as a student representative member at the SWAN SAT team for gender equality at the School of Pharmacy, QUB. Zina is interested in engaging with scientific community and in promoting microbiology.
- Twitter:
- @AlfahlZina
Binod Rayamajhee
Binod joined the School of Optometry and Vision Science, UNSW, Sydney in March 2020 to pursue his PhD project on corneal infection focusing Acanthamoeba keratitis under the supervision of Dr Nicole Carnt and Prof Mark Willcox of UNSW, Sydney and Prof Fiona L. Henriquez from the Infection and Microbiology Research Group at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). Binod holds a Master’s in medical microbiology from Tribhuvan University, Nepal in 2017. After completion of his master, Binod worked in different organisations in his home country focusing on infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance and infection control where he has cofounded a research institute in 2017 targeting infectious diseases and has received some noteworthy grants in the past. Binod has profound interest in interdisciplinary collaboration with diverse groups of people for open science, science advocacy, and science for all so, advocating, and championing for translational research are particular interests of Binod outside of his laboratory walls. On the same note, he has served as a community Ambassador of eLife Sciences Publications Ltd., UK (2019 - 2020) and an international representative for the Early Career Scientists (ECS) Committee, AMI (2018 - 2019).
- Twitter:
- @RayamajheeBinod
Jennifer Acuff
Jennifer Acuff is an assistant professor in food safety and microbiology at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA. She acquired a B.S. in Biology from Abilene Christian University in Texas and a Master’s in Food Microbiology from Kansas State University. In 2020, Jennifer graduated from Virginia Tech with a Ph.D. in Food Safety and Microbiology. Jennifer has been passionate about food safety for many years, working in research areas related to beef, ready-to-eat foods, and low-water activity foods. Her research primarily focuses on intervention technologies designed to reduce pathogen contamination at the post-harvest level. Jennifer’s university appointment also allows her to teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students, as well as engage with her local community on food safety issues. Happy and eager to approach food safety from a holistic perspective that addresses research, education, and consumer food safety, Jennifer hopes her work can be applicable to both food processors and consumers.
- Twitter:
- @JenniferAcuff
Kwabena Duedu
Kwabena Duedu received a BSc in Medical Laboratory Science and an MPhil in Microbiology from the University of Ghana before pursuing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. He worked on engineering novel microbial systems for bioconversion of cellulosic biomass in the laboratory of Prof. Christopher French at the Institute of Quantitative Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Following his PhD, he took up a Lecturership position at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana where he also leads a research group focused on using third generation sequencing to understand microbial ecology and evolution. Specifically, he conducts research on understanding the role of the microbiome in sickle cell disease as well as using a one health and metagenomics approach to investigate distribution and spread of antibiotic resistance in Ghana. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his lab set up a testing centre that is currently providing SARS-CoV-2 testing for two of the 16 administrative regions of Ghana and some adjoining communities in other regions. His lab is also investigative the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Ghana’s Eastern Corridor, as well as developing metagenomics-based diagnostics for fever and other disease conditions. He is a TIBA-AAS (TIBA is the NIHR Global Health Research Unit Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa and the AAS is the African Academy of Sciences) Out of Africa Fellow with the University of Edinburgh. His research under the TIBA-AAS programme is aimed at detecting infectious aetiology of fever from critically ill children using nanopore sequencing and metagenomics in Ghana. Kwabena is passionate about building biomedical research capabilities in Africa.
- Twitter:
- @KwabenaDuedu
Supram Hosuru Subramanya
Dr. Supram HS is a medical microbiologist, with a Doctorate in Medical Microbiology from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. Currently, he is working as Assistant Professor in MCOMS, Nepal. He is experienced in diagnostic microbiology and teaching undergraduate and postgraduate medical students. He is a member of the Infection Control Committee and Hospital Waste Management Committee at Manipal Teaching Hospital, Nepal. His area of research is infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance (One-Health perspective), and emerging fungal infections. Since 2014, he has been working in various international collaborative research projects. His research yielded more than 45 publications in international medical journals.
He is also an active reviewer for several academic journals such as PlosOne, Lancet-ID, Frontiers, Journal of Chemotherapy, JAC-AMR, BMC series, EC Microbiology, AJMS, etc. He is serving as Academic Editor of PLoS ONE, Research Editor of JAC-AMR official journal of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and Section Editor in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. Based on demonstrated excellence in research and commitment to advance society, Dr. Supram is appointed as International Young Ambassador for Science to Nepal from the American Society for Microbiology in 2020. He also received more than 20 awards for his research from various international scientific societies.
Chika Ejikeugwu
Chika Ejikeugwu (Ph.D.) is a MIF Research Fellow. He had postdoctoral training on HIV-1 at the Laboratory of Infectious Disease Model, Institute for Frontier Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan (2018). He holds a PhD. in Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Biotechnology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria (2017). Dr. Chika Ejikeugwu is a tutor with Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria. He joined the Department of Applied Microbiology in 2014, where he enjoys working closely with undergraduate and postgraduate students to help them develop their own passions for microbiology, research, teaching and other aspects of life. Dr. Chika Ejikeugwu is also an Adjunct Senior Lecturer with the Department of Microbiology, Coal City University, Emene, Enugu, Nigeria. His areas of research interest include antimicrobial resistance (AMR), infectious diseases, novel drug discovery, HIV-1, bacteriology, virology.
He was selected winner of the 2020 Edition of the Prof. Oyewale Tomori National Young Scientists’ Prize in Microbiology by the Nigerian Young Academy (NYA) because of his outstanding contributions in the field of microbiology in Nigeria and across Africa. In the academic/research front, Dr. Chika Ejikeugwu has trained and mentored a generation of manpower for the microbiology sector in Nigeria. He is currently active in programmes through which he impart the knowledge and skills in the field of microbiology he has accumulated over the years from both national and international institutions, on both students and researchers across the globe. The website (https://microbiologyclass.com/) he developed is currently helping to contribute to the corpus of knowledge in the field of microbiology, and specifically AMR in Nigeria, Africa and across the globe.
Melissa Fallon
Melissa is a postdoctoral researcher at Cardiff University where she is developing drug delivery systems to improve the outcome of ocular fungal infections. Prior to this she gained her PhD also at Cardiff in collaboration with GAMA Healthcare to improve decontamination products to reduce outbreaks of healthcare associated infections. Melissa enjoys promoting microbiology through public engagement events such as Pint of Science and Soapbox science in Wales and currently sits on the engagement committee for the Cardiff Institute for Tissue Engineering and Repair (CITER).
Akpan M. Friday
Akpan M. Friday is a second year undergraduate microbiology student at the University of Abuja. He currently works with X-WOW, a social enterprise in the U.K aiming to establish a digital network to erase pathology borders. In a quest to envision basic microbiology knowledge in children and provide access to quality science education, he founded X-WOW Science Kids Club, an outreach group in Nigeria promoting microbial literacy and making microscopic equipment available to children in schools in underprivileged areas. He is also the initiator and coordinator of a Lecture Without Borders series that brings together microbiology literate professionals from different parts of the world to lecture students.
Friday also loves attending many online science programs. When not studying microbiology, he takes pleasure in reading motivational books and engaging in social impact projects.
- Twitter:
- @damiakpan
Yemisi Jeff-Agboola
Dr. Yemisi Adefunke Jeff-Agboola is the Chair of the AMI International Conference Committee (ICC). She is a Lecturer at Biological Sciences and the Acting Director, Continuing Education Centre, University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, Nigeria. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Auburn Unversity, USA, a post-doctoral visiting scholar at Ghent University, Belgium and University of Missouri, Columbia, USA. She holds a PhD in Food Microbiology with special interests in Mycotoxicology, Food Safety and Gender Responsive Agricultural Research. Yemisi is also the President and founder of “Voice of Women in the Development of Agriculture”, an Ambassador of the World Food Preservation Center and a peer review college member of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Tom Stanton
Tom obtained his BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Roehampton in 2015. Excited to put what he learned into practice, Tom became a microbiologist at Leatherhead Food Research working on a number of different food safety research projects and routine pathogen surveillance. However, with a passion for antimicrobial resistance, Tom took the microbiological skills he had learned and moved onto the BSAC Resistance Surveillance Project at Public Health England under Prof. David Livermore. It was while working for BSAC he observed the real threat of AMR and the lack of novel antimicrobials first-hand. Following a brief stint specialising in high-throughput short-read sequencing at PHE’s NGS lab, Tom undertook a PhD at the University of Edinburgh under Dr. Thamarai Schneiders. Following his passion, Tom’s project involves determining the mechanism of action and resistance to the novel antibiotic, cefiderocol.
- Twitter:
- @tomstantonmicro
Ekene Umego
Ekene is a PhD Research Scholar at Technological University Dublin where he is working on resources assessment of the raw materials requirements, supply and by-product production in the Irish brewing and distilling sectors under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Barry Ryan and Ms. Marie Byrne. Ekene holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Food Science and Technology from the University of Nigeria with a bias in food microbiology and processing. Prior to commencement of his doctoral studies at TU Dublin, he did one year of research at Jiangsu University, China where he worked on Ultrasound Assisted Fermentation focusing on ultrasound stimulation in the synthesis of protease enzyme using Bacillus subtilis under the tutelage of Professor Ronghai He. Outside of academics, Ekene is a volunteer for ARK Missions Outreach and is passionate about youth empowerment and social problems.
- Twitter:
- @princkencee
Łukasz Wajda
Łukasz joined AMI in May 2020 as an International Member. He worked in the food industry before pursuing his scientific career, going on to complete his PhD at the University of Agriculture in Kraków, preparing his thesis entitled: "Identification of fungi dominant in apple and assessing the possibility of their inhibition by adding Arthrospira platensis to apple juices". During his PhD he collaborated with food manufacturers helping them to develop innovative products or to modify technological processes carried out in their companies. He also worked as a research assistant at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Since he discovered his passion for molecular biology later on he worked in the molecular laboratory at the Oncology Centre in Kraków. Currently he is working as a Principal Investigator in the field of Microbiology at biotechnological company that focuses on the application of probiotics from human breastmilk in various products. He is also involved in other projects involving human cell lines and developing anticancer agents.