Dr Melissa Lawson

Research Fellow

Exploring the impact of infant milk diet on microbiota development, with the intention of developing an enhanced infant formula.

I am Canadian and attended the University of Guelph, where I received a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology (Honours) and a Master of Science in Pathobiology. Following this I pursued a PhD in Immunology at McMaster University, Hamilton and relocated to complete my degree at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where I continued to work as a postdoctoral fellow before relocating to Norwich in 2014. Currently I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow (2015-2017) within the Hall group, where my research focuses on how the infant diet impacts colonisation of early-life bacteria in the gut. In my research I am using an in-vitro system called the model colon (shown here), to mimic the gut environment and examine how the bacterial community develops in response to breast-milk and formula diets.

Dr Melissa Lawson

Research Areas

  • Diet-Microbiota Interactions