Martha R.J. Clokie

Martha Rebecca Jane Clokie is a professor of microbiology at the University of Leicester.

Education Clokie studied biology at the University of Dundee. She graduated in 1996 and moved to Edinburgh, where she started a postgraduate degree in biodiversity. for research on the evolution of three genera of plants: Eucryphia, Griselinia and Coriaria.

Clokie joined the University of Leicester as a lecturer in 2007 and was promoted to Professor in 2016. She is interested in viruses known as bacteriophages which can be used to treat disease. Her work involves cyanobacteria and the sequencing of various bacteriophages. She demonstrated that marine phages contain the genes responsible for photosynthesis, and that phages do not only exert pressure on the infection-survival mechanism of cyanobacteria but can acquire the genes of a bacteria's prey. CDI causes almost two fifths of diarrhoea associated with antibiotics in the Western world, and one in ten of patients die due to a lack of effective treatment. The bacteriophage could reduce the growth of C. difficile and simultaneously defend beneficial bacterial that are typically destroyed by antibiotics. Clokie went on to demonstrate that C. difficile can evolve into a new species, with a specific strand that is adapted to spread quickly in hospitals. The new species survives on the sugar-rich diets of Westerners and can evade common disinfectants. Muga silk is produced in Assam and is one of the most valuable silks in the world. They are at risk from Flacherie, a bacterial disease that is caused by larvae eating infected leaves. These phages disable the Salmonella bacterial disease that infects pigs and can be added to pig feed.

Selected publications Her publications include;

Bacteriophages: Methods and Protocols Phages in nature Marine cyanophages and light Bacterial photosynthesis genes in a virus

Clokie is founding editor-in-chief of the journal PHAGE: Therapy, Applications and Research.

Awards and honours Clokie was awarded a Grand Challenges exploration fund award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This allowed her to investigate bacteriophages that could be used to eradicate Shigellosis.