Dr April Hayes

I am a microbiologist, with broad interests in microbial ecology and evolution, particularly in regard to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). I am interested generally about how bacteria adapt to stress, and particularly the environments and contexts that promote selection and maintenance of AMR.

I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr Aimee Murray, Professor Will Gaze, Professor Angus Buckling, Professor Mario Recker, and Professor Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern (University of Bath) to understand AMR evolution in the environment to improve environmental pollution policy. We are interested in understanding which antibiotics and at what concentrations are driving selection for AMR in the environment. I am primarily lab-based, and spend my time using a range of phenotypic and genotypic approaches to understand these questions.

For my PhD I researched how non-antibiotic drugs could select for AMR in bacterial communities. This included investigating how pharmaceuticals such as painkillers, and natural hormones could lead to increased antibiotic resistance within bacteria at environmentally relevant concentrations. For this I worked with Dr Aimee Murray, Professor Will Gaze, and Dr Lihong Zhang from the University of Exeter, alongside supervisors Professor Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern and Professor Ed Feil from the University of Bath. My project was co-funded by Astra-Zeneca, and was supervised by Professor Jason Snape.