People

Dr Maurice Gallagher

Location: Darwin 7.03
Telephone: +44 (0)131 650 5409
Email: MP.Gallagher@ed.ac.uk
Web-Site:

C.V.

Research groupings

Member of the ASM, SGM and Biochemical societies

Recent and current co-workers:Jacqui Reyner, Katy Woodall, Sarah Shrimpton, Louise McGibbon, Peter Gwynne, Graham Dall, Jon Stanley
Links to recent or current collaborators:
Professor Mark Bradley, Chemistry Department
http://www.chem.ed.ac.uk/staff/academic/bradley.html
Dr. Carmel Moran, Biomedical Physics
http://www.medphys.ed.ac.uk/people/staff/moranc.htm
Professor Jim Ross
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/surgery/staff/surgical-profiles/jim-ross
Professor Hamish Simpson
http://www.orthopaedic.ed.ac.uk/
Dr. David Swann
http://eccrg.org.uk/team/team.html
Professor Malcolm Walkinshaw
http://ctcb.bio.ed.ac.uk/member_Malcolm.php
Professor Tim Walsh
http://www.anaes.med.ed.ac.uk/univ/staff.html
Dr. Garry Blakely
http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/institutes/cell/homepage.php?id=gblakely

Teaching

Course Organiser for Molecular Microbiology 3 and honours year vaccines elective. Also teaching on SFP 3 and Biotechnology 3 and 4. QA & QE officer for the School of Biological Sciences.

Research interests

Our lab is focused around addressing issues of bacteriology and biotechnology. We use a wide range of approaches, including genetics, molecular (and synthetic) biology, microbial physiology, gene expression profiling (e.g. microarrays), gene cloning and disruption, low and high throughput sequencing (e.g. Solexa), protein expression and purification, proteomics, interactome analysis, and immunomics. However, our guiding principle is not based on using a range of technological approaches but rather, to define the key questions and issues that we wish to address, and then approach this in the most appropriate scientific manner.

Much of our current work is collaborative and has potential intellectual property value so is not published. However, our lab is focused mainly on studying bacterial pathogens, particularly those associated with food borne infection (e.g. Salmonella, Campylobacter, Clostridia) and medical implant infections (e.g. Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus, Enterobacter, Klebsiella). Key themes include:

• Developing live and peptide based vaccines
• Characterising bacterial stress and response mechanisms for understanding and elimination of bacterial pathogens (e.g. cold shock and peroxide stress components and their roles, biofilm formation, unravelling mechanisms of antibiotic tolerant persistence)
• Development of novel systems for quantitative biofilm analysis, for measuring bacterial survival and antibiotic effectiveness
• Developing novel bacterial imaging and elimination systems for medical use (e.g. for ultrasound imaging)
• Use of polymer microarrays to identify compounds which strongly bind or repel bacterial binding to surfaces (e.g for use as surface coatings on medical devices or for sequestering/ detecting pathogens).

We also have a long history of studying bacterial solute transport systems per se and as models for diseases such as cystic fibrosis and multi-drug resistance in cancer cells.

Representative publications

Pernagallo, S, Wu, M, Gallagher, MP and M Bradley (2011). Colonising new frontiers - microarrays reveal biofilm modulating polymers. J. Mater. Chem. Volume 21, Issue 1, Pages 96-101.

Morgan, HP, Estibeiro, P, Wear, MA, Max, KEA, Heinemann, U, Cubeddu, L, Gallagher, MP , Sadler, PJ, and MD Walkinshaw (2007). Sequence specificity of single-stranded DNA-binding proteins: a novel DNA microarray approach. Nucleic Acids Res. 35: e75.

Patching, SG, Baldwin, SA, Baldwin, AD, Young JD, Gallagher, MP , Henderson PJ and RB Herbert (2005) The nucleoside transport proteins, NupC and NupG, from Escherichia coli: specific structural motifs necessary for the binding of ligands. J. Org. Biomolec. Chem. 3(3), 462-470.

Gaze, W H, Burroughs, N, Gallagher, MP and EMH Wellington (2003) Interactions between Salmonella typhimurium and Acanthamoeba polyphaga, and observation of a new mode of intracellular growth within contractile vacuoles. Microbial Ecol. 46 (3), 358-369.

Goulsbra, A., Edwards, C., & M.P. Gallagher. (2001) Surface hygiene monitored using a reporter of fis expression in Escherichia coli. J. Applied Microbiol. 90, 1-6.

McCabe, P. M., Gallagher, M.P. & Deacon, J.W. (1999) Evidence for segregation of somatic incompatibility during hyphal tip subculture of Rhizoctonia solani AG 4. Mycological Research. 103(10), 1323-1331.

Taylor, P.D., Inchley, C.J. & Gallagher, M.P. (1998). The Salmonella typhimurium AhpC polypeptide is not essential for virulence in BALB/c mice but is recognised as an antigen during infection. Infect. Immun. 66, 3208-3217.

Craig, J.E., Boyle, D., Francis, K.P. and M.P. Gallagher. (1998). Expression of cspB in Salmonella typhimurium occurs below a threshold temperature. Microbiol. 144, 697-704.

Francis, K.P., Taylor, P.D., Inchley, C.J. & M.P. Gallagher. (1997) Identification of the ahp operon of Salmonella typhimurium as a macrophage-induced locus. J. Bacteriol. 179, 4046-4048.

Aarons, S.J., Sutherland I.W., Chakrabarty, A.M., and Gallagher, M.P. (1997). A novel gene algK from the alginate biosynthetic cluster of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Microbiology 143, 641-652.

Francis, K.P. & Gallagher, M.P. (1993). Light emission from a Mu dlux transcriptional fusion in Salmonella typhimurium is stimulated by hydrogen peroxide and by interaction with the mouse macrophage cell line J774.2. Infect. Immun. 61, 640-649.

Hyde, S.C., Emsley, P., Hartshorn, M.J., Mimmack, M.L., Gileadi, U., Pearce, S.R., Gallagher, M.P. , Gill, D., Hubbard, R.E. & Higgins, C.F. (1990). Structural model of ATP-binding proteins associated with cystic fibrosis, multidrug resistance and bacterial transport. Nature 346, 362-365.

Gallagher, M.P. , Marshall, R.D. & Wilson, R. (1989). L-Asparaginase as used in therapy of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Essays in Biochemistry 24, 1-40.