Trevor Lawley

Dr Trevor Lawley is a Faculty member and Senior Group Leader of the Host-Microbiota Interactions Lab (HMIL) at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and Co-Founding Chief Scientific Officer of the clinical-stage biotech company Microbiotica. His work has pioneered tools and methodologies that have enabled foundational discoveries and the translation of medicines and diagnostics from the human microbiome, including helping overturn the long-held "great plate count anomaly" dogma by showing that most of the human gut microbiota is culturable. This led to fast, affordable, high-resolution gut microbiome analysis, and to experimental testing of biological hypotheses that moves the field towards studies of causation and microbiome-derived medicines. His research has focused particularly on the role of the microbiome in infectious and autoimmune diseases, child developmental disorders, and cancer.

The HMIL has trained scientists now leading academic labs and biotechnology companies worldwide. Trevor chairs the Sanger International Fellows programme, supporting early-career scientists from low- and middle-income countries. His research has been published in Nature, Cell and Nature Biotechnology, among others, and featured by the BBC, CNN and The Economist.

In 2016, he founded Microbiotica to develop live biotherapeutic products, biomarkers and microbiome-based technologies for autoimmune diseases and cancer. The company has since partnered with Genentech (2018) and with the University of Cambridge and Cancer Research UK (2020) on biomarker and medicine discovery for IBD and cancer immunotherapy, and in 2024 launched two Phase 1b trials of its lead therapeutics, for melanoma and ulcerative colitis, with results expected in 2026.