Translational regulation of stress responses and antibiotic production in Streptomyces bacteria

We are focussing on understanding how Streptomyces bacteria respond to stress at the level of gene expression and how they control the gene clusters that encode production of so-called ‘secondary metabolites’, which include the majority of antibiotics in clinical use since the 1940s. We are exploiting genomics technologies within Brighton Genomics to understand, at a global level, how the system is regulated both at the level of transcription and translation.

Professor Smith is the lead organiser of a prestigious Royal Society International Scientific Meeting in March 2018 entitled ‘Changing views of translation: from ribosome profiling to high resolution imaging of single molecules in vivo’. This meeting brings together world leading researchers from across the world who study gene expression at two ends of the spectrum – from, on the one hand, global analysis of translation of all genes in cells and tissues to, on the other hand, analysis of expression of single molecules using new high resolution imaging techniques. It is hoped that the bringing together of scientists from these two fields could facilitate the development of new collaborations and approaches aimed at understanding how cellular processes are co-ordinated within cells.