ASM BacPath Oration

Every BacPath conference has included a BacPath Oration to celebrate the contribution of a leading Australian scientist who has not only made an important contribution to our community in Australia but also has an outstanding international profile for their leadership in studying bacterial pathogens. It is our pleasure to announce that for the first time, this oration is now co-sponsored with the Australian Society of Microbiology and is now officially called the ASM BacPath Oration. This oration will be recognised as a national award similar to the ASM Bazeley and Snowdon Orations.   

2019 ASM BacPath Orator

Professor Mark Schembri (University of Queensland)

Professor Mark Schembri is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He is also Deputy Director of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre. His research is in the field of molecular microbiology and bacterial pathogenesis. His specialist interest is in the area of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), with a focus on the genetics, genomics and virulence of multidrug-resistant UPEC clones, and the role of cell-surface factors in UPEC adhesion, aggregation, biofilm formation and colonisation of the urinary tract. Professor Schembri has published >200 papers, including seminal research discoveries on the role of UPEC adhesins in disease and the evolution of the recently emerged and globally disseminated multidrug-resistant UPEC ST131 clone. His team have developed the application of transposon directed insertion-site sequencing (TraDIS) as a genome-wide screen to understand the genetic basis of complex UPEC phenotypes, including survival in human serum, capsule production, curli biosynthesis, antibiotic resistance, motility, plasmid conjugation and zinc resistance. In total, his research papers have been cited >13,000 times.

Professor Schembri obtained his PhD in 1996 from Monash University under the supervision of Prof John Davies. He then carried out a highly successful postdoc at the Technical University of Denmark under the mentorship of Prof Per Klemm, where he began his work on E. coli and the study of fimbrial and autotransporter adhesins. In 2001, he was awarded a highly prestigious 3-year Skou Fellowship from the Danish Science Foundation. Professor Schembri returned to Australia in 2004 to take up a Senior Lectureship position at the University of Queensland. He was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in 2010 and his NHMRC SRF in 2016. Professor Schembri is also a Fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology and an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Professor Schembri’s leadership in the field of UPEC research is evidenced by invitations to present the keynote talk at two out of the last three clinical urinary tract infection meetings (2013 and 2019). He has published 68 papers in the last 5 years, including a series of highlight 2019 publications in Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications (x2), PNAS, FASEB Journal and MBio.