Cynthia Whitchurch

Cynthia B. Whitchurch is an Australian microbiologist. Whitchurch is the research director of the Biofilm Biology cluster at the Singapore Centre For Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) and a Professor at the School Of Biological Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She was previously a research group leader at the Quadram Institute on the Norwich Research Park in the United Kingdom and the founding director of the Microbial Imaging Facility and a Research Group Leader in the Institute of Infection, Immunity and Innovation (The ithree institute) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in New South Wales.

Whitchurch studies bacteria and the ways in which their behavior coordinates to form biofilms, an area with importance for the treatment of infection and the use of antibiotics. Whitchurch became a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2019, in recognition of her discovery that DNA plays a novel role in nature that is unrelated to its roles in genetic functioning.

Her research focuses on alternate bacterial lifestyles, including biofilms and cell wall deficiency, and on developing innovative approaches to control biofilms and combat infection. Whitchurch determined that extracellular DNA (eDNA) is essential to and promotes the self-organization of biofilms. This information is credited with creating a paradigm shift in the understanding of biofilm biology. Provided by Wikipedia