School of Infection & Immunity

The School of Infection & Immunity is pleased to confirm the appointment of Professor Donal Wall as our new Head of Bacteriology, with Dr Lorena Fernandez-Martinez assuming the role of Deputy Head of the research area.

Professor Wall, an expert in the host-pathogen interface in the intestine and its effect on host phyiology, takes up the post as Professor Andrew Roe’s successor following his recent installment as Sii Director of Research.

Head of School Professor Julia Edgar said: "I am delighted to confirm that Donal Wall will be the new Head of Bacteriology, and that Lorena Fernandez-Martinez will now perform as Deputy Head. 

"My thanks to them both for taking on these roles. I look forward to working with them both in this new capacity and wish them every success."

Professor Wall’s academic career began in 2003 when he completed a PhD in Professor Wim Meijer’s laboratory at University College Dublin, studying the intracellular survival mechanisms of the opportunistic pathogen Rhodococcus equi.

He subsequently moved to Boston for a first postdoctoral fellowship studying Salmonella pathogenesis, in Professor Beth McCormick’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a second postdoc position studying cytomegalovirus in Professor Peter Ghazal’s Division of Pathway Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

Donal arrived at the University of Glasgow in 2009 as a Lecturer in Microbiology and Principal Investigator and progressed to the positions of Senior Lecturer (2017), Reader (2021), and Professor (2024) before assuming his current role as Head of Bacteriology.

Professor Wall said: “Firstly, thanks to Andy has done an excellent job in growing and expanding the Department of Bacteriology over the past five years; the future is looking very bright thanks to all his efforts.

“I am looking forward to taking on this role and taking the Department forward in partnership with Lorena.

"I am especially excited to see all the excellent science that we can now produce across the whole spectrum of bacteriology.”

New deputy Dr Fernandez-Martinez obtained her PhD from Swansea University, working on the regulation of stress responses in the bacterial genus Streptomyces under the supervision of Professor Paul Dyson.

She then moved onto a post-doctoral position in INBIOTEC, a biotechnology institute in León, Spain before joining Professor Mervyn Bibb’s research group as a post-doctoral scientist focussing on the regulation of antibiotic production at the John Innes Centre.

Lorena secured her first academic position at Edge Hill University, where she developed her research on the regulation of antibiotic biosynthetic gene clusters prior to taking up her current post here at Sii in 2023.

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First published: 10 January 2025