LAB NEWS

• Early 2023: Andrew Francis from Western Sydney University visited lab while he was on sabbatical.
• Feb 2023: We welcome Jasmin Oren and Thomas Smallbone who have joined the group as Honours students.
• Sep 2022: We welcome Pantea Pooladvand who has joined the group as a postdoctoral research associate.
• Sep 2022: Congratulations to Winton Wu on submitting his PhD thesis!
• Some recent papers: Xiong et al, Gut mutualists can persist in host populations despite low fidelity of vertical transmission; Aogo et al, Spatial dynamics of inflammation-causing and commensal bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract; Tanaka and Wahl, Surviving environmental change: when increasing population size can increase extinction risk. For other recent papers, see this publication list.

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Modelling microbial evolution

Microbes reproduce and evolve in fascinating ways. For example, their mutation rates can be variable and conspicuously high. They readily acquire resistance to antimicrobial drugs and evolve to escape host immunity. Viruses replicate remarkably fast and have highly constrained natural histories. Bacteria have genomes that can undergo rearrangement and horizontal transfer through mobile genes. Like larger organisms, microbes alter their environments and thereby alter the course of their own evolution in a process called niche construction . We study such features of microbes by developing and analysing mathematical models.

Model-based inference in molecular epidemiology

We develop new approaches to analyse molecular data from epidemiological studies. Many of these methods are based on computational or mathematical models of the underlying process of transmission and mutation of pathogens. Where models are complex we use techniques such as approximate Bayesian computation to draw inferences from data. We have also developed software to visualise molecular epidemiological data. Our latest software is called MERCAT (which replaces our older resource called spolTools).

Culture, disease, health and evolution

A further research area of interest to us is the interface between human culture and the dynamics of health and disease. Cultural practices influence and in turn are influenced by health and disease. For instance, we have studied how ineffective medical practices can spread in a population despite being maladaptive. In recent years we have become interested in understanding how shifts in culture can lead to the emergence of new diseases. We have advanced a hypothesis, for instance, that the emergence of tuberculosis was promoted by changes due to the ability to control fire in early human populations.

Research in the media