Dr Serena Monaco

Biography

I am a biological chemist with expertise in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), a powerful technique which I aim to apply to the field of microbiology.

This vision is at the core of the Quadram Early Career Fellowship that I hold since February 2025. I am developing an NMR-led approach to the study of microbial biosynthetic pathways, with the aim of unveiling the metabolic adaptation mechanisms of microbes in different body niches. In particular, I have been applying this approach to the study of oral microbes translocating to the gut and causing a wide range of diseases, such as Fusobacterium nucleatum, to better understand the molecular basis of their adaptation in the mouth and gut environments.

Technically, I rely on the high resolution NMR suit on the Norwich Research Park, featuring a total of 9 NMR spectrometers and over 10 different probes, which allows me to grow live bacterial cultures inside the NMR spectrometer and follow the fluxomics of absolute concentration of key metabolites of interest, in real time.

Previously, I was a PDRA and PhD in NMR methodology development at the School of Pharmacy at UEA (2019-2025, and 2015-2018, respectively). Prior to that, I achieved a 2 year MSc in Biological Chemistry at the Danish Technical University, and a BSc in Pure Chemistry, at the University of Salerno.