Faculty and alumni among Top 40 Under 40

“It is very humbling to receive this award,” said Coombes. “People come to the table
from all walks of life. It's not just scientists who win Top 40 Under 40, it's folks in
business, entrepreneurs, public service workers and athletes. It's everybody. To be
recognized among all of these different walks of life is a real honour.”

Coombes' record is impressive. After graduating in 2002 with a PhD in medical sciences
studying the pathogenesis of Chlamydia pneumonia infections, he became a CIHR and
Michael Smith Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia's
Michael Smith Laboratories.

In 2006, he moved to the Department of Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences at
McMaster where he now runs an active research program in infectious diseases at the
intersection of humans, animals and the environment. Among his awards are an Early
Research Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, a Most
Promising Researcher Merit Award from the Public Health Agency of Canada, a CIHR
New Investigator Award, an American Society for Microbiology Young Investigator
Award and a Boehringer Ingelheim Young Investigator Award.

“This particular award will bring a lot of recognition to my lab and its members,” said
Coombes. “In the past five years since the lab has been in operation, we have
collaboratively come up with ideas and mapped our strategic directions so this is really
a collaborative team effort that actually executes on ideas.”

Coombes has also had a long-standing relationship with the Public Health Agency of
Canada. In fact, his first appointment at McMaster was a joint one. This relationship has
allowed his lab to understand pathogens of relevance to Canadians, particularly enteric
diseases which are causing outbreaks around the globe.

“These are pathogens which are transmitted primarily from domesticated food animals
but also can be transmitted through water, so there is a real push to try to understand
the safety of our food and water supply,” he said. “Through our work we are trying to
understand how these organisms cause disease in humans and how they are able to
live harmoniously in animals where they don't necessarily cause disease.”

His lab also investigates antibiotic resistance. “If we can understand how bacteria
overcome host defences than we can start thinking about novel ways to not only treat,
but prevent infections. If we can start interfering with the way bacteria combat host
defences and disarm them using different types of small molecules or chemicals, then
we can render the bacteria almost harmless within a human to allow the human
defence system to overcome it.”

His ultimate goal is to understand the dynamics between host and pathogen to come
up with new therapeutics for infectious disease and new antibiotic discovery. “Through
collaborative work with other scientists in the Institute for Infectious Disease Research
we've been developing ways to combine small molecules and chemical entities to come
up with new antibiotics.”

The Top 40 Crystal Cube award will be presented to Coombes, Bakker and Budhdeo at
an awards gala at the Royal York Hotel on May 3. They are also featured in The Globe
and Mail.