Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common infectious diseases worldwide, causing significant morbidity and mortality. My laboratory studies the host/pathogen interactions of chronic urinary tract infection at the molecular level in close collaboration with clinicians. Our ethos is that clinical insights should feed the research programme, and research results are fed back into clinical practice as soon as possible. My lab employs live imaging, electron microscopy, confocal microscopy, microbiology, cell biology and gene knockdown techniques, with the ultimate goal of understanding the bacterial life cycle in urothelial cells, in particular the invasive properties and intracellular colonization of certain uropathogenic bacteria. We are also developing novel tissue engineering strategies to grow human organotypic bladder epithelia in culture to study the basic biology of infection and repair, as well as to be used as a test-bed for novel therapeutic strategies. In parallel, we are collaborating with engineers to create encapsulated antibiotics for bladder delivery, and are studying the role of biofilm formation in chronic infection.