Dr James Connolly
Medical Research Council Career Development Award Fellow
I am currently a Medical Research Council Career Development Award Fellow and Group Leader in the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FMS) at Newcastle University. Following completion of my PhD in 2015, I spent 4 years as a postdoctoral research associate gaining valuable experience before joining FMS as a Faculty Fellow in 2019.
The Faculty Fellowship provided the salary support, lab space, start-up funds, mentorship and training required to transition to academic independence and generate the crucial supporting data needed for competitive external funding applications.
In 2020 I won a Springboard Award from the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Research grant from the Royal Society which kickstarted my lab. In 2022, I secured a 5-year Career Development Award from the Medical Research Council which supports my lab and growing team as we establish an ambitious program of research.
FMS always appealed to me because of its outstanding reputation for basic bioscience research, particularly in my own area of microbiology. I am surrounded by a huge network of diverse and collaborative colleagues who together make the environment a very motivating and inspiring place to perform research. There is also a very strong culture of support and mentorship for young researchers at Newcastle that is invaluable at such a tenuous early career stage.
There is also a very strong culture of support and mentorship for young researchers at Newcastle that is invaluable at such a tenuous early career stage
My research is focused on bacterial pathogens and how they cause human disease. Specifically, we investigate how gene expression is controlled in pathogens at the host interface. My research has revealed important mechanistic insights into how bacterial pathogens cause infection at specific sites around the body such as the gut, the bladder and the bloodstream. In the long term I hope to be able to apply our findings to the real world in new and creative ways, such as the development of new therapeutics against bacterial pathogens.