School of Biosciences
 

Image of Jon Hobman

Jon Hobman

Associate Professor of Microbiology, Faculty of Science

Contact

Biography

Dr Jon Hobman

Associate Professor of Microbiology

Jon's research interests centre on bacterial metal ion homeostasis and resistance, antimicrobial resistance, co-selection, and pathogenic enterobacteria. Current research areas include:

  • Bacterial resistance to antimicrobial metals.
  • Gene regulation of antimicrobial metal resistance genes.
  • Antimicrobial resistance plasmids and co-selection in Gram-negative bacteria.
  • Laboratory and pathogenic Escherichia coli.
  • Molecular methods for studying bacterial gene regulation and expression.
  • Molecular methods for engineering Gram-negative bacteria.

Teaching Summary

  • Degree convenor for the C501 BSc Microbiology degree
  • Module convenor for:

BIOS3013 Microbial Isolation and identification module

BIOS3010 Microbial Fermentation module

BIOS3093 Rapid Methods in Microbiology

Research Summary

  • My research interests are centred on how bacteria respond to different insults, stresses and changes in external environmental conditions- including antimicrobial agents and the co-selection problem. We are addressing how these systems work through studies on gene regulation and control of gene expression.
  • Allied to this is an interest in understanding how old and new antimicrobial treatments kill bacteria, and how bacteria are resistant to them.
  • I am particularly interested in how bacteria respond to different metal-ion stresses. These stresses can be caused by either excessive or insufficient amounts of essential metal ions or by the presence of toxic metal ions in the bacterial cell.
  • Bacteria have evolved metal-ion specific transcriptional regulators which sense intracellular metal-ion levels and switch on genes involved in removing or detoxifying these metals, or switch off genes that import metals. I am particularly interested in understanding how regulators sense the metal-ion or other cognate chemical species within the cell that they sense and how they regulate transcription of genes involved in the cellular response.
  • We are using comparative functional genomics and molecular microbiology techniques (bioinformatics, gene knockout technology, epitope tagging, reporter gene fusions, site directed mutagenesis, transcriptomics, and chIP on chip and chIP-seq) to study gene regulation and to analyse differences in responses to stress between laboratory and pathogenic Escherichia coli strains. As part of this I am involved in technology platform development, working on increasing the resolution and developing new uses for post-genomic technologies.

_________________________________________________________________

Media summary: Bacterial gene expression, antimicrobial metal resistance, Escherichia coli, transcriptomics,

_________________________________________________________________

Selected Publications

Past Research

  • Mercury, zinc, copper, and lead resistance in bacteria
  • MerR family regulators

Future Research

  • Transcriptomics,
  • Antibiotic resistance
  • ChIP-on chip,
  • Pathogenic E. coli,
  • Metals as antimicrobial agents,
  • Metal ion resistance and homeostasis systems.

School of Biosciences

University of Nottingham
Sutton Bonington Campus
Nr Loughborough
LE12 5RD, UK

For all enquiries please visit:
www.nottingham.ac.uk/enquire

Find us
Campus map
Room Locations on Campus [pdf file]