A/ProfBill Soderstrom

ARC Future Fellow Dr. Bill Söderström leads the Microbial Super-Resolution Microscopy Lab (soderstromlab.com) at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection, AIMI , where he also serves as the Institute Lead for ECR Development and Inclusion. Since 2022, Bill has secured more than $3 million AUD in funding (including from ARC and MRFF) to support his research. He is a Fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology (FASM). 

With a background in Biomedical physics, Bill uses advanced imaging techniques and genetics in combination with microfluidic-based approaches to better understand bacterial morphology changes during stress conditions. Research in his lab is primarily focused on how bacterial cells go about dividing and multiplying during Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs). In this way, he wants to identify new ways to inhibit division, with the rationale that if the bacteria cannot divide, they cannot spread infection.

He obtained his doctoral degree in Biophysics at Stockholm University in 2014 under the joint supervision of Profs. Gunnar von Heijne and Daniel Daley. He later took up a postdoctoral scholar position at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan, to further study bacterial cell division. At OIST he developed approaches in Correlative cryo-Light and cryo-Electron Microscopy (Cryo-CLEM). He also pioneered ways to image bacteria in a vertical position using micron holes, that in combination with super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, provide superior resolution of the protein complexes in live bacteria.

His work on these topics has received multiple recommendations in the Faculty of 1000, is frequently mentioned in popular media, on Wikipedia and in patents, and is regularly highlighted in review articles.

Bill also holds a Master of Science degree in Engineering Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, in an interdisciplinary program with the Karolinska Institute (KI), both in Stockholm, Sweden. He focused on the physics of clinically used medical imaging systems such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Magnetic Resonance Imagining (MRI) and Ultrasound.