Notices by the General Board

Establishment of a Professorship of Bacteriology

The General Board, on the recommendation of the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine and the Council of the School of Clinical Medicine, has approved the establishment of a Professorship of Bacteriology at Grade 12 for a single tenure from 1 September 2026, assigned to the Department of Medicine. The full salary costs of the Professorship will be met from the School’s recurrent Chest allocation. The Resource Management Committee approved the funding arrangements of the Professorship on 25 March 2026.

Academic bacteriology, including bacterial pathogenesis, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), host–microbe interactions, genomics/metagenomics, and vaccinology, is a critically important discipline at the national level and is a significant global health challenge. The Department of Medicine, through its Infection and Immunity section and more recently the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID), has made a longstanding and internationally recognised contribution in this field. The Department maintains a strong research presence in mycobacterial disease, significant respiratory bacterial infections, host immunity to bacterial pathogens, host-microbiome interactions and AMR. However, recent staff changes have left the bacteriology research theme critically under-resourced.

Cambridge maintains strong links with the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and a growing relationship with the Cambridge University Hospital’s Clinical Microbiology service. The Department and CITIID are also partners in the Global Health Institute, supported by the recent establishment of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Professorship of Global Health and partnerships with the International Vaccine Institute. The holder of the new Professorship would be well-positioned to strengthen and expand these initiatives.

The General Board has agreed, on the recommendation of the Faculty Board of Clinical Medicine and the Council of the School of Clinical Medicine, that the candidature shall be open to all persons with experience in the general field of the title of the office.

The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 1, p. 456) for the approval of the establishment of the Professorship for a single tenure.