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Fundamental research

Investigations into mycoplasma pathogenicity and virulence factors

How they cause disease and how they manage to survive in the host and environment.

Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP)

This is a DNA based technique for identifying bacterial communities such as those present in lungs during respiratory disease.  By combining T-RFLP with reverse transcriptase we can also get an indication of the "activity" of the mycoplasma bacteria.

Vaccine development

For further information, see the:

• Mycoplasma bovis vaccine information sheet (pdf 84kb)

Biofilm studies

The group were the first to show that mycoplasmas were capable of forming a biofilm. Recently, we have focused on determining the genetic basis of biofilm formation and how mycoplasmas survive in the host and/or the environment.

Pathogenicity studies

We are also studying how mycoplasmas cause disease, which genes are linked to pathogenicity and how some mycoplasmas such as Mycoplasma bovis can infect multiple sites such as the udder, lungs, joints and brain and what the genetic difference may be between these strains. Research is now directed at whole genome analysis and proteomics.