ML
Personal Profile
Dr Laabei is a Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (CMM), University of Bristol. Dr Laabei completed his PhD at the University of Bath in 2014 where he undertook an interdisciplinary project spanning molecular microbiology and biophysical chemistry. Here he helped develop phospholipid-based biosensors for rapid bacterial detection and explored fundamental processes governing toxin regulation in the major human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. He was nominated for the Ede and Ravenscroft Prize by the Department of Biology and Biochemistry for his outstanding postgraduate research.
After his PhD, Dr Laabei won a competitive European Respiratory Society Fellowship and moved to the Fundació Institut Investigació Germans (IGTP) Trias i Pujol, Barcelona. Dr Laabei explored the impact of cigarette smoke on the pathophysiology of S. aureus. In 2017, Dr Laabei moved to Lund University as a Postdoctoral Fellow and began his research on the complement system, specifically exploring how bacterial pathogens evade complement detection and complement mediated elimination.
In 2019, Dr Laabei moved back to Bath to establish his own research group which focuses on understanding staphylococcal innate immune evasion mechanisms, S. aureus antimicrobial resistance and developing novel compounds to tackle multi-drug resistant S. aureus infection. In 2024 Dr Laabei took up a position at the CMM Bristol, continuing his research on infectious diseases and AMR.
Dr Laabei has received funding from the Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal Society, European Commission, ESCMID and UKRI.
