Dr Mark M. Collery, BA (Hons), PhD
Post-Doc Scientist/Laboratory Manager/Accessions Manager
Mark graduated with a BA (Mod) Hons in Microbiology from Trinity College, Dublin in 2004. He went on to complete his PhD entitled “Molecular genetic typing techniques of human and animal isolates of Staphylococcus aureus” under the supervision of Cyril J. Smyth, also at Trinity College, in 2008.
After working for Teagasc, Ireland‘s agriculture and food development authority, typing isolates of verocytotoxigenic E. coli from sheep and cows from abattoirs, Mark joined the Clostridia Research Group at the University of Nottingham. He was initially responsible for designing real-time PCR assays to detect MRSA and Clostridium difficile for use on a point-of-care platform. Mark went on to investigate the molecular pathogenicity of C. difficile, including examining the roles of individual toxins in C. difficile infection (CDI) in a “hypervirulent” strain and the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms on the different pathogenicity characteristics of closely related strains of C. difficile. Mark joined Micropathology in July 2014 and will be involved in the company’s molecular diagnostic work, as well as in assay development and validation.