Professor Stineke Van Houte

About me:

I'm a Professor of Microbiology at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation. I have a broad interest in host-parasite interactions, and I have worked on various different model systems to tackle questions that are broadly related to how parasites manipulate their hosts (from behaviour to immune responses), and how hosts counteracts these processes. For my PhD I have worked on behavioural manipulation of insects by baculoviruses, while for my postdoc I have shifted to bacteria and their viruses (phages) as a model system for host-parasite interactions. I established my own research group in 2018, which studies interactions between bacteria and their parasites, including plasmids and bacteriophages. In particular my team is interested why and how parasites and their bacterial hosts coexist and (sometimes) coevolve, and what the consequences of these interactions are for the wider community they exist in. We integrate molecular, genetic and evolutionary approaches to tackle these questions. Although much of the group's work addresses fundamental research questions, we also apply this fundamental knowledge to tackle real-world challenges, e.g. the spread of antibiotic resistance, the potential for microbiome engineering and the development of phage therapy as an alternative to antibiotics. You can find more information about my research group at my personal website:

https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/vanhoutelab/