Dr. Ronan Mccarthy

Biography

Ronan gained a Bachelor of Science in Genetics with first class honours from University College Cork, Ireland in 2010, awarded the title College Scholar. In autumn 2010, Ronan was awarded an Irish Research Council PhD Scholarship to study novel biofilm inhibition strategies for the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the lab of Professor Fergal O’Gara. In 2014, he joined the research group of Professor Alain Filloux at the MRC Centre for Bacteriology and Infection at Imperial College London. As a Postdoctoral Research Associate, Ronan interrogated messenger signaling cascades governing the biofilm mode of growth in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Agrobacterium tumefaciens. During his time at Imperial College, he joined the Microbiology Department of the Animal and Plant Health Agency to utilize host transcriptomics and pathway analysis to profile host responses to infection. He later joined the Biosciences Division at Brunel University to continue his analysis of regulatory networks that govern pathogenicity and antimicrobial resistance in biofilm formation in Gram-negative opportunistic pathogens. In 2021, Ronan was awarded the BBSRC New Investigator Award to study the regulation of desiccation tolerance and biofilm formation in Acinetobacter baumannii, identifying compounds that disrupt survival mechanisms. He expanded his field to biofilm engineering, utilizing synthetic biology approaches to control bacterial biofilm formation and tackle environmental challenges like plastic waste. In 2025, Ronan joined the University of Southampton to further his research on understanding and disrupting regulatory pathways that govern biofilm formation.

Research Interests

Experience