Dr Bernadette Young

MBBS, BA, DPhil, MRCP, FRCPath

Dr Bernadette Young studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, Australia where she also undertook a BA in literary studies. After commencing training as a doctor in Melbourne, she moved to Oxford in 2007 to continue training as an academic clinical fellow. With a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship in 2013 she completed a DPhil in Clinical Medicine at Wolfson College, Oxford in 2017. In 2022 she completed dual training in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology and was appointed as a Consultant in Infection at Oxford University Hospitals.

Research Interests

In addition to her clinical work, Dr Young is an Honorary Researcher in the Modernising Medical Microbiology group of the Nuffield Department of Medicine. Her research has included studies of bacterial virulence, revealing signatures of bacterial evolution during infection, and determining associations between bacterial genes and disease. She has also worked as an investigator in clinical trials to improve the treatment of serious bacterial infections. During the Covid-19 pandemic she led a national randomised controlled trial of lateral flow testing to release students from isolation and return them to education. Her current research focuses on integrating pathogen genomic information to the management of infections including diagnosis and studies of transmission, to deliver benefits to patient care.

Selected Publications

Young BC, Dudareva M, Vicentine MP, Hotchen AJ, Ferguson J, McNally M. Microbial Persistence, Replacement and Local Antimicrobial Therapy in Recurrent Bone and Joint Infection. Antibiotics (Basel). 2023 Apr 5;12(4):708. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics12040708
Young BC, Bush SJ, Lipworth S, George S, Dingle KE, Sanderson N, Brankin A, Walker T, Sharma S, Leong J, Plaha P, Hofer M, Chiodini P, Gottstein B, Furrer L, Crook D, Brent A. Modern Solutions for Ancient Pathogens: Direct Pathogen Sequencing for Diagnosis of Lepromatous Leprosy and Cerebral Coenurosis. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Aug 23;9(9):ofac428. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac428.
Young BC, Eyre DW, Kendrick S, White C, Smith S, Beveridge G, Nonnenmacher T, Ichofu F, Hillier J, Oakley S, Diamond I, Rourke E, Dawe F, Day I, Davies L, Staite P, Lacey A, McCrae J, Jones F, Kelly J, Bankiewicz U, Tunkel S, Ovens R, Chapman D, Bhalla V, Marks P, Hicks N, Fowler T, Hopkins S, Yardley L, Peto TEA. Daily testing for contacts of individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection and attendance and SARS-CoV-2 transmission in English secondary schools and colleges: an open-label, cluster-randomised trial. Lancet. 2021 Sep 14:S0140-6736(21)01908-5. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01908-5
Young BC, Wu CH, Charlesworth J, Earls S, Price JR, Gordon NC, Cole K, Dunn L, Liu E, Oakley S, Godwin H, Fung R, Miller R, Knox K, Votintseva A, Quan TP, Tilley R, Scarborough M, Crook DW, Peto TE, Walker AS, Llewelyn MJ, Wilson DJ. Antimicrobial resistance determinants are associated with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia and adaptation to the hospital environment: a bacterial genome-wide association study. Microbial Genomics. 2021 7(11):000700
Young BC, Earle SG, Soeng S, Sar P, Kumar V, Hor S, Sar V, Bousfield R, Sanderson ND, Barker L, Stoesser N, Emary KRW, Parry CM, Nickerson EK, Turner P, Bowden R, Crook D, Wyllie D, Day NPJ, Wilson DJ, Moore CE. Panton-Valentine leukocidin is the key determinant of Staphylococcus aureus pyomyositis in a bacterial genome-wide association study. Elife. 2019 Feb 22;8. pii: e42486.