Staff Profile

Background

From a strong background in classical environmental engineering, I have become a specialist in the microbial ecology of biological wastewater treatment systems, infrastructure essential to society on a global scale. Through my academic research and interactions with industry, I have developed a unique combination of skills and gained experience and expertise that lies at the interface between environmental engineering, theoretical ecology, microbiology and virology. My ambition is to utilise this knowledge to move towards a more sustainable future for the water and wastewater industry, thus society as a whole, by developing methods, theory and tools for the control and management of engineered microbial communities. 

My principle research interests lie in the field of biological wastewater treatment and the use of ecological approaches to better understand the microbial communities that drive these globally important processes. I am currently working as part of a multidisciplinary team investigating the rules that determine the growth and dynamics of complex biological communities in such systems, incorporating biological, chemical, physical and hydrodynamic interactions (Website). This research builds on previous work I have undertaken looking into the role of environmental and stochastic effects on the composition of microbial communities, again in biological treatment systems. Alongside both projects, as part of my doctorate, I explored the impact of bacteriophages on such systems, both in terms of their role in community composition and structure and on function (plant performance) and functional stability. It is this exciting and potentially important arena that I see my future research. Unearthing the role viruses play in regulating the microbial communities and functional performance of engineered systems could be crucial in endeavours to better understand, manage and optimise these systems, which are currently facing unprecedented demands imposed by population growth, climate change mitigation and increasingly strict environmental regulation. Realising their potential to control problematic bacteria in engineered systems also offers an exciting research opportunity.

Prizes and Awards

• Winner of Environment Yes 2013.
• AECOM Environmental Engineering Best Student, Newcastle University, 2010. 
• CIWEM Environmental Engineering Best Project, Newcastle University, 2010.

Qualifications

• PhD in Environmental Engineering, “Virus dynamics and their interactions with microbial communities and ecosystem functions in engineered systems”, Newcastle University 2019.
• MSc in Environmental Engineering, Newcastle University 2010. Thesis “The Application of Microbial Biocathodes in Microbial Electrolysis Cells Lacking a Membrane”.
• BSc in Geography, Newcastle University 2009. Thesis “Investigation Assessing Heavy Metal Contamination of Riverine and Bottom Sediments within the Glenridding Beck Catchment and Lake Ullswater, and the Subsequent Response of Macroinvertebrate Communities”.

Research Interests

Biological Treatment Systems

Engineered Systems Virology

Experimental and Theoretical Microbial Ecology

Projects/Experience

Royal Society Research Grant:  Automated, high-resolution in vitro evaluation of nitrous oxide emissions from biological wastewater treatment (current). PI, £70k.

Royal Academy of Engineering: Exploiting Viral Ecology to Engineer Better Biological Wastewater Treatment (current). Research Fellow (PI), £500k.

Joint Biosecurity Centre, Lead Scientist within the Environmental Monitoring for Health Protection (EMHP) programme monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater. Now part of UKSHA. (2020-2021). Secondment.

EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (Newcastle University): Real Time Monitoring of Wastewater Treatment Plant Microbial Communities for Better Treatment Management (2020 - 2021). PI, £47k.

EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (Newcastle University): Tooling the water industry for better wastewater treatment management (2019 - 2020). Co-I, £39k.

EPSRC: BE:WISe - Biological Engineering: Wastewater Innovation at Scale (2015 - 2019). RA, £1.2M. Website

EPSRC: NUFEB - Newcastle University Frontiers in Engineering Biology (2013 - 2019). RA, £5.6M. Website

EPSRC: Predicting the acclimatisation of microbial watewater treatment communities as a function of the environment, random immigration, birth and death (2010 - 2013). RA, £647K.

CEG8198: MSc Project and Dissertation in Environmental Engineering (Project/Dissertation Supervisor)

• Articles

  • Hassard F, Vu M, Rahimzadeh S, Castro-Gutierrez V, Stanton I, Burczynska B, Wildeboer D, Baio G, Brown MR, Garelick H, Hofman J, Kasprzyk-Hordern B, Majeed A, Priest S, Denise H, Khalifa M, Bassano I, Wade MJ, Grimsley J, Lundy L, Singer AC, Di Cesare M. Wastewater monitoring for detection of public health markers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Near-source monitoring of schools in England over an academic year. PLoS ONE 2023, 18(5), e0286259.
  • Farkas K, Pellett C, Williams R, Alex-Sanders N, Bassano I, Brown MR, Denise H, Grimsley JMS, Kevill JL, Khalifa MS, Pantea I, Story R, Wade MJ, Woodhall N, Jones DL. Rapid Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Variant-Associated Mutations in Wastewater Using Real-Time RT-PCR. Microbiology spectrum 2023, 11(1), e0317722.
  • Bassano I, Ramachandran VK, Khalifa MS, Lilley CJ, Brown MR, van Aerle R, Denise H, Rowe W, George A, Cairns E, Wierzbicki C, Pickwell ND, Carlile M, Holmes N, Payne A, Loose M, Burke TA, Paterson S, Wade MJ, Grimsley JMS. Evaluation of variant calling algorithms for wastewater-based epidemiology using mixed populations of SARS-CoV-2 variants in synthetic and wastewater samples. Microbial Genomics 2023, 9(4), 000933.
  • Wade MJ, Lo Jacomo A, Armenise E, Brown MR, Bunce JT, Cameron GJ, Fang Z, Farkas K, Gilpin DF, Graham DW, Grimsley JMS, Hart A, Hoffmann T, Jackson KJ, Jones DL, Lilley CJ, McGrath JW, McKinley JM, McSparron C, Nejad BF, Morvan M, Quintela-Baluja M, Roberts AMI, Singer AC, Souque C, Speight VL, Sweetapple C, Walker D, Watts G, Weightman A, Kasprzyk-Hordern B. Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes. Journal of Hazardous Materials 2022, 424(Part B), 127456.
  • Tlhagale M, Liphadzi S, Bhagwan J, Naidoo V, Jonas K, van Vuuren L, Medema G, Andrews L, Been F, Ferreira ML, Saatci AM, Alpaslan Kocamemi B, Hassard F, Singer AC, Bunce JT, Grimsley JMS, Brown M, Jones DL. Establishment of local wastewater-based surveillance programmes in response to the spread and infection of COVID-19 – case studies from South Africa, the Netherlands, Turkey and England. Journal of Water and Health 2022, 20(2), 287-299.
  • Brunner FS, Brown MR, Bassano I, Denise H, Khalifa MS, Wade MJ, van Aerle R, Kevill JL, Jones DL, Farkas K, Jeffries AR, Cairns E, Wierzbicki C, Paterson S. City-wide wastewater genomic surveillance through the successive emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Delta variants. Water Research 2022, 226, 119306.
  • Wu L, Ning D, Zhang B, Li Y, Zhang P, Shan X, Zhang Q, Brown MR, Li Z, Van Nostrand JD, Ling F, Xiao N, Zhang Y, Wells GF, Yang Y, Deng Y, Tu Q, Wang A, Global Water Microbiome Consortium, Zhang T, He Z, Keller J, Nielsen PH, Alvarez PJJ, Criddle CS, Wagner M, Tiedje JM, He Q, Curtis TP, Stahl DA, Alvarez-Cohen L, Rittmann BE, Wen X, Zhou J. Global diversity and biogeography of bacterial communities in wastewater treatment plants. Nature Microbiology 2019, 4, 1183-1195.
  • Brown MR, Baptista JC, Lunn M, Swan DL, Smith SJ, Davenport RJ, Allen BD, Sloan WT, Curtis TP. Coupled Virus - Bacteria Interactions and Ecosystem Function in an Engineered Microbial System. Water Research 2019, 152, 264-273.
  • Brown MR, Hands CL, Coello-Garcia T, Sani BS, Ott AIG, Smith SJ, Davenport RJ. A flow cytometry method for bacterial quantification and biomass estimates in activated sludge. Journal of Microbiological Methods 2019, 160, 73-83.
  • Brown MR, Camézuli S, Davenport RJ, Petelenz-Kurdziel E, Øvreås L, Curtis TP. Flow cytometric quantification of viruses in activated sludge. Water Research 2015, 68, 414-422.
  • Baptista JDC, Lunn M, Davenport RJ, Swan DL, Read LF, Brown MR, Morais C, Curtis TP. Agreement between amoA Gene-Specific Quantitative PCR and Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization in the Measurement of Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria in Activated Sludge. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2014, 80(19), 5901-5910.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Brown MR, Bassano I, Denise H, Khalifa M, Wade MJ. The UK Wastewater Surveillance Programme - An insight into variants detection and bioinformatics at the NHS Joint Biosecurity Centre. In: The EU Sewage Sentinel System for SARS-CoV-2 (EU4S) 5th Town Hall Meeting, Oral Presentation. 2021, European Commission.
  • Schwartz-Narbonne R, Brown MR, Flynn S. Multidisciplinary Analyses of Wastewater Reactors. In: Environmental Biotechnology Network Early Career Researcher Conference. Poster Presentation. 2020, Virtual Conference.
  • Schwartz-Narbonne R, Brown MR, Sabba F, Wells G, Flynn S. CHARM: CHAracterising wastewater Reactor bacterial communities and stressors with Membrane lipid analysis. In: Environmental Biotechnology Network Colloquium. 2020, Edinburgh, UK: Environmental Biotechnology Network (EBNet).
  • Brown MR, Ott A, Coello-Garcia T, Smith SJ, Allen BD, Davenport RJ. Simultaneous determination of in situ maximum specific growth rates for hundreds of bacterial taxa in activated sludge. In: 7th International conference on Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering. Poster Presentation. 2019, Hiroshima, Japan.
  • Brown MR, Baptista JDC, Lunn M, Swan DL, Smith SJ, Davenport RJ, Sloan WT, Curtis TP. Virus abundance dynamics in a full scale activated sludge plant. In: 16th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology. Oral Presentation. 2016, Montreal, Canada.
  • Brown MR, Baptista JDC, Lunn M, Swan DL, Smith SJ, Davenport RJ, Sloan WT, Curtis TP. Virus abundance dynamics and their biotic and abiotic interactions in a full scale activated sludge plant. In: 6th International conference on Microbial Ecology in Water Engineering. Oral Presentation. 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Brown MR, Baptista JDC, Lunn M, Swan DL, Smith SJ, Davenport RJ, Sloan WT, Curtis TP. Virus abundance dynamics in activated sludge processes. In: Molecular Microbial Ecology Group Conference (MMEG 2015). 2015, London, UK.
  • Baptista JDC, Lunn M, Davenport RJ, Swan DL, Read LF, Sloan WT, Brown MR, Curtis TP. Evaluating Quantification Methods of Microbial Communities in Environmental Samples. In: 5th International conference on Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering. Oral Presentation. 2013, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US.
  • Brown MR, Swan DL, Kurdziel EP, Baptista JDC, Lunn M, Davenport RJ, Sloan WT, Read LF, Curtis TP. Abundance and dynamics of viruses within Activated Sludge Processes. In: 5th International conference on Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering. Poster Presentation. 2013, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US.

• Report

  • Brown MR, Wade MJ, McIntyre-Nolan S, Bassano I, Denise H, Bass D, Bentley J, Bunce JT, Grimsley J, Hart A, Hoffmann T, Jeffries A, Paterson S, Pollock S, Porter J, Smith D, van Aerle R, Watts G, Engeli A, Henderson G. JBC and Defra: Wastewater monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 variants in England: demonstration case study for Bristol (December 2020 to March 2021), 8 April 2021. London: Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencie, 2021.