Research interests are mainly focussed on: The relationship between stress and the progress of human and animal infectious disease; Exposure to human stress hormones (principally the catecholamines, adrenaline and noradrenaline) on bacterial growth and virulence; Catecholamines, endogenous and therapeutic stimulate growth and biofilm formation in normally harmless skin commensals such as Staphylococcus epidermis. Such inadvertent pathogens are under study as they may form biofolms within indwelling medical devices, such as intravenous catheters. Molecular analysis of catecholamine responsiveness in commensal and pathogenic E. coli, Salmonella and Streptococcus pyogenes

Haigh R, Kumar B, Sandrini S, Freestone P. Mutation design and strain background influence the phenotype of Escherichia coli luxS mutants. Molecular Microbiology 2013(in press) Freestone P, Hirst R, Sandrini S, Sharaff F, Fry H, Hyman S, O'Callaghan C. Pseudomonas aeruginosa-catecholamine inotrope interactions: A contributory factor in the development of Ventilator Associated Pneumonia? Chest 2012;142(5):1200-10 Sharaff F, Freestone P. Microbial Endocrinology. Central European Journal of Biology 2011;6:685-94. Book: Lyte M and Freestone PPE (Editors). Microbial Endocrinology: inter-kingdom signaling in health and disease. Springer Publishers (April 2010). Freestone P, Lyte M. Stress and microbial endocrinology: prospects for ruminant nutrition. Animal 2010;4(7):1248-57 Pullinger GD, Carnell SC, Sharaff FF, van Diemen PM. Dziva F, Morgan E, Lyte M, Freestone PP, Stevens MP. Norepinephrine augments Salmonella enterica-induced enteritis in a manner associated with increased net replication but independent of the putative adrenergic sensor kinases QseC and QseE. Infect Immun 2010;78(1):372-80 Sandrini SM, Shergill R, Woodward J, Muralikuttan R, Haigh RD, Lyte M, Freestone PP. Elucidation of the mechanism by which catecholamine stress hormones liberate iron from the innate immune defense proteins transferrin and lactoferrin. J Bacteriol 2010;192(2):587-94 Lyte M, Freestone PPE. Microbial Endocrinology becomes of age. ASM Microbe (April 2009)