David Holden

David joined Prokarium in 2019 as advisor in Salmonella biology and engineering strategy. He is Professor of Molecular Microbiology in the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London since 1995. David was Director of the Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection (MRC CMBI),between 2012 and 2019. In 2016, he was appointed as the first Regius Professor of Infectious Disease in the UK and he is a fellow of the Royal Society, the American Academy of Microbiology, the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), and an EMBO Member. David was co-founder of the biotech company Microscience that developed the Salmonella strain ZH9. He is best known for inventing a technique called signature-tagged mutagenesis (also termed barcoding) for identification of mutants with altered growth in mixed populations. Using STM his group has identified numerous genes of Streptococcus, Staphylococcus and Salmonella that are required for virulence.