Team

We humans rapidly die in the absence of food or water. Yet many microbial species can survive these hostile conditions for thousands of years. Research in my lab is focused on understanding this extraordinary ability, which we humans do not possess.

We are specifically interested in a process we term “hibernation of biological molecules”. Our work is unified by two overarching questions: how do essential enzymes of a cell are stored in starved cells correctly, and what happens when they don’t? Because molecular hibernation is ubiquitous, we move back and forth between simple and complex organisms (bacteria, fungi, mammalian tissues). Through proteomics and structural biology, we study the fate of ribosomes and other essential molecules in stressed, starved, or metabolically inactive cells. Our work provides a mechanistic understanding of cellular dormancy, thereby providing the basis for controlling this process in pathogenic bacteria or valuable biological specimens. Our past work has identified several families of proteins that are activated in response to stress or starvation to help cells preserve their most essential enzymes from undesired activity or irreparable damage.

Before joining Newcastle University, Karla completed her BSc degree in Environmental Microbiology at Michigan State University. There, working with Professor Terence Marsh, she helped identify new natural sources of antifungal compounds.

Currently, Karla is exploring the molecular biology of extremophiles and human pathogens to understand their extraordinary capacity to resist heat, cold, starvation and other growth-limiting and life-threatening environments. Her work has been supported by the NUORS Scholarship, an award given to the very best international students pursuing a program of research at Newcastle University, an EMBO Scientific Grant that she won in 2024 to pursue her collaboration with Stefan Pfeffer’s laboratory at Heidelberg, as well as other personal awards that have kindly funded her studies into the unknown of microbial stress tolerance.

His work combining evolutionary studies, cryo-EM and proteomic analysis shows that ribosome hibernation factors—long thought to be highly conserved across bacteria—are in fact prone to dramatic structural divergence and frequent loss across bacterial species.

Currently, Lewis is exploring the implications of these findings to bacterial tolerance (or lack thereof) to starvation and stress. His work has been supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Doctoral Training Partnership, funding that has enabled his investigations into the evolutionary principles governing stress tolerance and adaptation in microbial life.

Before joining Newcastle University, Chinenye completed her MSc degree in Medical Microbiology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. There, working with Professor Iruka Okeke, she helped characterize the antimicrobial activity of medicinal plants that have been used for centuries by African tribes as wound-healing agents. In the Melnikov Lab, Chinenye used experimental evolution as a discovery tool to find new antimicrobial drugs and better strategies for their use to combat drug-resistant pathogens. Her work was supported by the MRC Studentship.

Chinenye successfully defended her PhD thesis in 2025 and, during her time in the lab, produced multiple first- and co-first-authored publications. After defending her thesis and receiving the Doctoral College Thesis Prize Medal, she continued her scientific journey by joining Christin Dunham’s lab as a postdoctoral scientist.

Before joining the lab, Charlotte completed her MSc degree in Computational Biology at Newcastle University, UK. She then worked for the National Health Service where she helped create a pipeline for automated and rapid detection of human pathogens through DNA sequencing to enable personalized patients’ treatment. In the Melnikov Lab, Charlotte used structural biology and comparative genomics to understand the impact of the parasitic lifestyle on the molecular machines of living cells. Her work was supported by the BBSRC Studentship.

Charlotte successfully defended her PhD thesis in 2026 and, during her time in the lab, contributed to multiple co-first-authored publications spanning computational genomics, structural biology, and database development.