Dr. D. John I. Thomas BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD
Post-Doc Scientist/Microbiology Manager
Dr D. John I. Thomas graduated in Microbiology from the University of Manchester in 1992. This was followed by an MSc in Environmental Microbiology from the University of Aberdeen in 1993. In 1994 John commenced a Ph.D. at HRI on "Gene exchange between Bacillus thuringiensis strains infecting three orders of insects", this was supervised by Dr Alun Morgan and Prof. John Whipps at HRI and Prof. Jon Saunders at the University of Liverpool.
Following on from John’s Ph.D. he spent a period in the chemicals and biotechnology section of the Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions (now DEFRA) before re-starting work at the "bench" again in Prof. Paul Williams’s quorum sensing group at the Pharmacy School of Nottingham University. Subsequently, John spent a year in France at INRA, Dijon in the group of Dr. Phillipe Lemanceau characterising antibiotic producing pseudomonads in French soils. John then returned to the land of his fathers at Cardiff University to work on a strain of Paenibacillus with activity against a range of Gram positive bacterial pathogens including vancomycin resisitant enterococci. After this John worked for a period at Direct Laboratory Services Ltd., Wolverhampton with Dr Mike Hutchison (now of Bristol University) on pathogens associated with food production environments. In August 2003 John re-rejoined Warwick-HRI to work on a project on the cellular microbiology of the host -pathogen interaction between the two eukaryotes. John’s work on this interaction was recognised with the award of the SGM/SFAM sponsored young speakers prize prize at the Basidio 2005 meeting. In October 2006 John joined Micropathology Ltd.
John has a diverse set of interests in Environmental Microbiology and hence in his career has microbially sampled a range of environments from milk and honey to plant roots and chicken coops. John’s current interests include the use of 16S rRNA and other molecular tools in the diagnosis of hitherto difficult to identify infections.