Meet the 2025 Marjory Stephenson Prize Winner, Professor George Salmond

25 March 2025

The Marjory Stephenson Prize is the principal prize of the Microbiology Society, awarded for an outstanding contribution of current importance in microbiology. 

Ahead of the Marjory Stephenson Lecture, Early Career microbiologist Stelinda Peros interviewed Professor George Salmond to learn more about his career and how it feels to win a Microbiology Society prize.

Congratulations on winning the Marjory Stephenson Prize 2025! Who or what first inspired you to become a scientist and focus on bacterial pathogenesis? 

I think everything started when I was a high school student. I was lucky because I had a superb chemistry and biology teacher, as well as an English teacher, who were very important for my early development. My involvement with microbiology stemmed from my genuine interest in pathology. Although initially I was more interested in studying biochemistry, I accepted an undergraduate offer from the University of Strathclyde to study microbiology. Studying microbiology turned out to be very beneficial for me because it instilled a great fascination about the whole microbial world, interactions of microbial systems and bacterial pathogenicity mechanisms. 

How would you describe your research to a member of the public? 

If I had to explain my research to a member of the public, I would start by explaining what bacteria and fungi are, particularly their importance in our life. Throughout my career, I have been interested in various aspects of bacterial pathogenicity. The way bacteria communicate and send signals to one another, known as quorum sensing, has always fascinated me. Notably, my research group has made some interesting discoveries in this area. My research has also shed new light on the mechanisms which allow bacteria to survive when they are infected by bacteriophages. 

What are some of the most surprising things you have discovered during your career? 

I feel very lucky indeed because I have had brilliant students in my group from all levels- undergraduates, PhD students and postdocs- who have discovered amazing things! Many of them have continued in academia, eventually becoming professors and opening-up their own labs, discovering very important things around microbes and publishing high quality papers. Several of them have also won many prizes such as the Fleming Prize and the Sir Howard Dalton Prize. We have discovered some exciting things, but I would like to talk about two serendipitous discoveries. 

One of the things my lab has discovered is that some bacteria can be buoyant, meaning that they are able to float in a sea or river. This buoyancy is a result of production of unique gas vesicles (flotation chambers) that can be regulated through quorum sensing. The second discovery is the phenomenon of abortive infection systems, where some bacteria have a cryptic plasmid that protects them against the lethal effects of populations of bacteriophages. Specifically, when a bacterial cell is infected by a bacteriophage, this plasmid encodes an RNA sequence that produces a toxic protein, which inhibits viral replication and leads to the suicidal death of the infected cell, thereby preventing the spread of the bacteriophage to other bacterial cells. So, bacterial cells can be altruistic in the sense that once a bacterial cell gets infected by a phage, the infected cell sacrifices itself to protect other uninfected cells. Fascinatingly, this discovery began with the fortuitous observation of an undergraduate student while studying a plant pathogen. The discovery was then further investigated and expanded to include other pathogens, leading to the publication of multiple papers. 

What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced in your career, and how have you overcome them? 

The major challenge for me, as for every academic, has always been securing research grants to recruit PhD students and postdocs, and enable us to carry out our research. However, I must admit that I have been very lucky in terms of funding. Since I was a new lecturer I've essentially been continuously funded and my research group has always been working on fundable and interesting projects. 

Antibiotic resistance is a serious global health threat. What advancements do you foresee in tackling it, and how can your research contribute to that? 

Antibiotic resistance is indeed a serious global health threat. The discovery of new antibiotics is of course very important and should be pursued, as new antibiotics are essential. Since chemistry is fundamental for the production of new antibiotics, I think collaboration between chemists and microbiologists is key. AI may also be quite useful for the generation of new molecules that have antibacterial and antifungal activity. 

Phage therapy is a field where there has been a rejuvenation of interest, especially over the last 10-15 years. Although there are some difficulties with phage therapy, I believe there will be further developments and progress in the coming years. As I mentioned, the findings from my own lab have contributed to our basic knowledge of the biology of bacteriophages, such as abortive infection systems. 

Finally, I think that generation of antimicrobial vaccines may be a promising field as well. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a lot of interest in antiviral vaccines, so I think that significant progress could also be made for the development of antibacterial and antifungal vaccines. 

What advice would you give to the young scientists who aspire to pursue a career in microbiology and infectious disease research? 

One piece of advice to young scientists would be to find a research topic that truly fascinates them! Doing a PhD, especially, involves moments of excitement when you achieve great results, but also difficult moments when your experiments fail and you feel as though there is no progress in your work. It’s the fascination and commitment to the project that will keep you motivated, helping you push through the difficult moments to stay productive. Also, in my opinion, being part of a supportive research group will be very beneficial for you, due to the wealth of information and advice shared during group meetings and presentations. Last but not least, as I mentioned earlier, luck will also help you to discover surprising things!