Dr Modupeh Betts passed his viva!

Congratulations to MPRU (ex-)PhD student Modupeh Betts for passing his viva! Dr Betts completed his viva on 18th October 2022. Modupeh's thesis work was on the transcriptomic adaptation of Streptococcus pneumoniae, with the goal of gaining insights into the differences in the pathogenesis of different serotypes.

Modupeh used RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) to investigate the differences in the adaptation of clinical S. pneumoniae strains to environmental changes in biologically relevant conditions, such as temperature and iron concentration changes over time. As part of this work, Modupeh generated reference-quality genome assemblies of S. pneumoniae strains and published the genome assembly of the African serotype 1 isolate.

Upon graduation, Modupeh will work with Prof. Jay Hinton at the University of Liverpool as a postdoctoral researcher, using functional genomics, transcriptomics, mutagenesis and experimental evolution to study pathogenesis of African Salmonella in human macrophages. His long term research goal is to understand the behaviour of infectious disease pathogens in sub-Saharan Africa. We look forward to more interesting discoveries from Modupeh!