Professor Angela Brueggemann
Contact information
Colleges
Websites
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Imperial College London
Visiting Professor
Angela Brueggemann
Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
My research focuses on understanding how changes in bacterial population structure impact on global health and vaccine initiatives. I am especially interested in bacteria that are major causes of diseases like meningitis and pneumonia, the most important of which is Streptococcus pneumoniae.
My research group sequences the genomes of large collections of bacterial isolates (thousands of bacteria) to extract the genetic information relevant to our research questions. We use the genome sequence and population structure data to understand how changes within the bacterial population may impact on human health and the success of vaccination programmes.
Our newest initiative is called IRIS (Invasive Respiratory Infection Surveillance), which is a large international consortium of laboratories investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the rates of invasive diseases caused by S pneumoniae, H influenzae and N meningitidis. I also have a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award to investigate bacteriocins, which are antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria to inhibit competing bacteria. We are investigating bacteriocins among bacteria found in the nasopharynx and exploring whether bacteriocins might be developed as novel antimicrobials.
Other projects within the research group relate to investigating bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria), assessing the burden of meningitis in Africa, and making bacterial genomes freely accessible to the international community through PubMLST. I am also involved in outreach and am keen to inspire the next generation of scientists.
Recent publications
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The Invasive Respiratory Infection Surveillance (IRIS) Initiative reveals significant reductions in invasive bacterial infections during the COVID-19 pandemic
Journal article
BRUEGGEMANN A., (2020), MedRxiv
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The global meningitis genome partnership.
Journal article
Rodgers E. et al, (2020), The Journal of infection
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Prophages and satellite prophages are widespread in Streptococcus and may play a role in pneumococcal pathogenesis.
Journal article
Rezaei Javan R. et al, (2019), Nature communications, 10
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Vaccination of Icelandic Children with the 10-Valent Pneumococcal Vaccine Leads to a Significant Herd Effect among Adults in Iceland.
Journal article
Quirk SJ. et al, (2019), Journal of clinical microbiology, 57
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Genomic Analyses of >3,100 Nasopharyngeal Pneumococci Revealed Significant Differences Between Pneumococci Recovered in Four Different Geographical Regions.
Journal article
van Tonder AJ. et al, (2019), Frontiers in Microbiology, 10