Dr Melissa Webby

Welcome Career Development fellow

Email:

Office: MB 12

BlueSky: @melissawebby.bsky.social

LinkedIn: Melissa Webby

Research Clusters

Microbiology & Infectious Disease

Warwick Centres & Spotlights

Warwick Integrated Structural Biology CentreLink opens in a new window

Warwick Antimicrobial Interdisciplinary CentreLink opens in a new window

Opportunities in the group

For PhD and postdoctoral opportunities, and interest in potential collaborations, please contact me at the above email address.

Research/Teaching Interests

My lab studies how bacteria build and maintain their protective outer shell, known as the cell envelope. This structure is a major player in resistance, helping bacteria to adapt to their environment and block harmful molecules, which makes many dangerous pathogens so difficult to treat. We focus on Gram-negative bacteria, which make up a significant portion of the high-priority ESKAPE pathogens responsible for drug-resistant infections worldwide. By understanding how the molecular machines that construct the bacterial envelope work together, we aim to uncover new antibiotic targets that are less likely to develop resistance.

Research: Technical Summary

In Gram-negative bacteria, every step of envelope construction and repair must occur with precise spatial and temporal coordination, as failure at any stage can compromise cell viability. We aim to understand how these processes are orchestrated at the molecular level. Our work focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanisms underpinning assembly of protein complexes responsible for envelope maintenance as well as the regulatory mechanisms that coordinate their activity. By dissecting how these systems cooperate, we aim to identify new targets for the development of novel antibiotics.

To address these questions, we employ a multidisciplinary approach that integrates protein biochemistry, molecular biology, fluorescence labelling and live-cell imaging, cryo-electron tomography, and single particle cryo-EM. These techniques allow us to observe the dynamics of envelope assembly, map protein-protein interactions, and probe the structural organisation of these essential cellular machines in situ. In addition to mechanistic studies, we develop and apply new experimental tools and imaging strategies to push the boundaries of protein labelling in bacterial envelopes, creating methods that can be widely applied across the microbiology community.

We collaborate closely with other labs to engage in interdisciplinary collaborations across structural biology, biophysics, and computational modelling. These partnerships allow us to combine complementary expertise and tackle fundamental questions about bacterial cell biology from multiple angles.