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Jack Clark - Research Published
In March 2026 there was a major outbreak of bacterial meningitis in Kent. This outbreak was unprecedented due to the extremely high number of cases in a very short amount of time and as such attracted a lot of attention from media, public health officials and researchers.
I was part of a collaboration between UKHSA and several UK and US universities, including the University of Oxford. Our collaboration aimed to characterise the genome of the outbreak strain and identify genetic mutations that may have contributed to such a large outbreak.
During my PhD I developed a novel tool for the allelic annotation of bacterial intergenic regions and multi-copy genes, which I used to characterise the non-coding genome of the outbreak strain and complex, multi-copy genes, while colleagues investigated protein-coding genes.
Alongside my supervisor, Chris Bayliss, I also characterised specific virulence-associated genes which are able to mutate at rates far higher than typical bacterial genes due to a phenomenon known as phase variation.
Our collaboration was able to identify the likely cause of the outbreak - genetic exchange between the outbreak strain and closely related avirulent bacterial species which also colonise the nasopharynx.
Our work has been published as a preprint on biorxivLink opens in a new window while undergoing peer-review at a journal. The research attracted media attention, including articles in the BBCLink opens in a new window and New ScientistLink opens in a new window. The first author of the paper, Dr. Charlene Rodrigues, also gave an interview to the BBC about the work.