Professor Andres Floto

Bacterial genomics and evolution

Innate immunity

Antibiotic Discovery

Machine learning for biomedicine and healthcare

Andres Floto is Professor of Respiratory Biology, based at the Victor Philip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute, and Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine (CCAIM), based at the Department of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics. He currently co-leads the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Interdisciplinary Research Centre.

Biography

His basic research is focused on:

(i) using forward and reverse genetics to understand how bacteria evolve from environmental organisms into specialised lung pathogens and how they interact with the innate immune system;

(ii) developing new machine learning (ML) methods to gain systems-level understanding of bacterial pathobiology; and

(iii) creating new antibiotics by combining fragment-based, structure-guided methods with machine learning models to predict bacterial chemical permeability and metabolism.

Hi clinical research is focused on developing AI-driven home monitoring platforms to predict clinical deteriorations in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and non-CF bronchiectasis (NCFB), understanding the genetic factors that predispose to nontuberculous mycobacterial infections and bronchiectasis, and creating methods to predict antibiotic susceptibility using bacterial genomics.

Publications

Key publications:

Weimann A, Dinan A, Ruis C, Bernut A, Pont S, Brown K, Ryan J, Santos L, Ellison L, Ukor E, Pandurangan A, Krokowski S_, Blundell T, Welch M, Blane B, Judge K, Bousfield R, Brown N, Bryant J, Kukavica-Ibrulj I, Rampioni G, Leoni L, Harrison P, Peacock S, Thomson N, Gauthier J, Fothergill J, Levesque R, Parkhill J, Floto RA (2024) Evolution and host-specific adaptation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Science (in press)
Bryant JM, Brown KP, Burbaud S, Everall I, Belardinelli JM, Rodriguez-Rincon D, Grogono DM, Peterson CM, Verma D, Evans IE, Ruis C, Weimann A, Arora D, Malhotra S, Bannerman B, Passemar C, Templeton K, MacGregor G, Jiwa K, Fisher AJ, Blundell TL, Ordway DJ, Jackson M, Parkhill J, Floto RA. Stepwise pathogenic evolution of Mycobacterium abscessus. Science. 2021 Apr 30;372(6541): eabb8699. doi: 10.1126/science.abb8699. PMID: 33926925.
Bryant JM, Grogono DM, Rodriguez-Rincon D, Everall I, Brown KP, Moreno P, Verma D, Emily Hill E, Drijkoningen J, Gilligan P, Esther CR, Noone PG, Giddings O, Bell SC, Thomson R, Wainwright CE, Coulter C, Pandey S, Wood ME, Stockwell RE, Ramsay KA, Sherrard LJ, Kidd TJ, Jabbour N, Johnson GR, Knibbs LD, Morawska L, Sly PD, Jones A, Bilton D, Laurenson I, Ruddy M, Bourke S, Bowler ICJW, Chapman SJ, Clayton A, Cullen M, Daniels T, Dempsey O, Denton M, Desai M, Drew RJ, Edenborough F, Evans J, Folb J, Humphrey H, Isalska B, Jensen-Fangel S, Jönsson B, Jones AM, Katzenstein TL, Lillebaek T, MacGregor G, Mayell S, Millar M, Modha D, Nash EF, O’Brien C, O’Brien D, Ohri C, Pao CS, Peckham D, Perrin F, Perry A, Pressler T, Prtak L, Qvist T, Robb A, Rodgers H, Schaffer K, Shafi N, van Ingen J, Walshaw M, Watson D, West N, Whitehouse J, Haworth CS, Harris SR, Ordway D, Parkhill J, Floto RA (2016). Emergence and spread of a human- transmissible multidrug-resistant nontuberculous mycobacterium. Science 354: 751-757.
Hepburn L, Prajsnar TK, Klapholz C, Moreno P, Loynes CA, Ogryzko NV, Brown K,Schiebler M, Hegyi K, Antrobus R, Hammond KL, Connolly J, Ochoa B, Bryant C, Otto M, Surewaard B, Seneviratne SJ, Grogono DM, Cachat J, Ny T, Kaser A, Török ME, Peacock SJ, Holden M, Blundell T,Wang L, Ligoxygakis P,Minichiello L, Woods CG, Foster SJ, Renshaw SA, Floto RA (2014). A Spaetzle-like role for Nerve Growth Factor b in vertebrate immunity to Staphylococcus aureus. Science 346, 641-646.
Floto RA, MacAry PA, Boname JM, Mien TS, Houben ENG, Pieters J, Day C, Oehlmann W, Singh M, Smith KGC, Lehner PJ (2006). Dendritic cell stimulation by mycobacterial HSP70 is mediated through the HIV co-receptor CCR5. Science 314, 454-458.