Dr David W Cleary BSc, PhD
Career Track Post-Doctoral Fellow
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Dr Cleary is a Career Track Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine and the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
His research focuses on the application of computational biology approaches to understand the epidemiology and pathogenicity of infectious disease, primarily of those pathogens that can be carried in the human respiratory tract such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and Non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae. In addition, his research involves characterising respiratory tract microbiomes to determine the community-host interactions that underpin colonisation and progression to disease.
As a microbial ecologist I’m interested in the microbiome of the respiratory tract - how it functions, the interactions of the different members of these communities, the response of the host and ultimately the impact of all these factors on health.
Dr Cleary graduated in Medical Microbiology from the University of Surrey in 2002. He went on to complete his PhD with the University of Warwick in 2013 whilst employed as a microbiologist at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories (DSTL), Porton Down. His PhD research investigated the impacts of gene abundance, horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and environmental persistence of DNA in relation to the detection of microbial taxa in complex communities, specifically pathogenic species of the genus Burkholderia.
Prior to his current appointment, he was a Senior Scientist and Technical Lead for Genomics within the Biological Sciences Group at the DSTL, Porton Down. He led a number of research programmes including those investigating the environmental and ecological interactions of highly pathogenic bacteria, quasispecies of RNA viruses, detection of pathogens within bio-aerosols, aerobiological responses of select agents and the design and development of analytical techniques for pathogen detection.
Qualifications
BSc (HONS) Microbiology (Medical), University of Surrey (2002)
PhD, University of Warwick (2013)
Appointments
Career Track Post-Doctoral Fellow, Microbial Sciences, Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and University of Southampton (2017 – Present)
Research Fellow, Microbial Genomics, University of Southampton (2014 – 2017)
Senior Scientist, Molecular Biology Team, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Porton Down (2009 – 2014)
Scientist, Molecular Biology Team, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Porton Down (2002 – 2009)
Research Assistant, Microbiology and Virology Research and Advice Team, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) (2000 – 2001)