Sophia joined the QUT Bacterial Pathogenesis group under A/Prof Makrina Totsika as an Honours student at the beginning of 2019, after completing her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science. Her interests are in bacterial virulence mechanisms and host responses to infection. During her B. Biomedical Science (Hons) course she has become familiar with animal models of urinary tract infection caused by uropathogenic E. coli and has examined the host immune response to infection via flow cytometry. She has now continued this investigation into her PhD project with the same group, also investigating new potential therapeutics for UTI treatment.