Meet the IRFLUVA team lead for infection…Dr Brad Spiller

Brad is an Associate Professor at Cardiff University and an expert on infection. His research focuses on infection in vulnerable people, novel diagnostics to detect infections, ‘superbugs’, the interactions between immune cells and bacteria and new methods of stopping the spread of infection. Brad was born in Canada and started his academic career at the University of British Columbia Medical School, and achieved a PhD in virology, before moving to work at Cardiff University at the School of Medicine. His research focuses on infections in people with reduced immunity -newly born babies, pregnant women and older people. He has developed tests that can help medical professionals diagnose infections quickly (near-patient tests) and also give information about which medication will treat the infection successfully, without the need for expensive and time-consuming testing. These are particularly useful for low-to-middle-income countries. On the opposite side of the spectrum, his lab also develop new high-throughput screening platforms and currently serves as the UK Antimicrobial Sensitivity Testing Reference Laboratory for some bacterial infections.

Currently, Brad is leading collaborative investigations (funded by Ineos Oxford Institute) of some bacterial infections in neonatal sepsis originating from Low-to-Middle income countries (LMIC) as part of BARNARDS phase II programme, with hospital sites in Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Niger, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Cuba, Ghana and Uganda.

Brad is Head of the Department of Microbiology and the project manager for this study and will be leading the laboratory work in Cardiff University. When he’s not being a scientist he likes skiing and ice hockey!