Annabell Bachem is a Group Leader in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. She received her PhD from the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, where she identified cross-presenting dendritic cells across species using the now widely adopted marker XCR1. In 2014, she joined the group of Prof Sammy Bedoui at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. Since then, her research has focused on the role of microbiota and microbiota-derived metabolites in regulating T cell immunity during infection and cancer. Her work on the regulation of CD8 T cell responses by the microbiota-derived metabolite butyrate has provided key insights into how bacteria localised in the gut can shape T cell function in distant tissues.