Oliver Pybus

Last updated

Oliver George Pybus is a British biologist. He is professor of evolution and infectious disease at the University of Oxford [1] and professor of infectious diseases at the Royal Veterinary College. [2] He is also editor-in-chief of Virus Evolution [3] and co-Director of the Oxford Martin School Program for Pandemic Genomics. [4] He is known for his work on the evolution and epidemiology of viruses and for helping to establish the field of phylodynamics. In recognition of his work, he has received several awards including the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London in 2009, [5] the Daiwa Adrian Prize in 2010, an ERC Consolidator Award in 2014, [6] and the Mary Lyon Medal of the Genetics Society in 2019, and in 2022 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. [7]

Education

Pybus obtained his B.Sc. in genetics from the University of Nottingham, where he studied with Bryan Clarke, followed by a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2000 under the supervision of Paul Harvey.

Related Research Articles

Bryan Campbell Clarke was a British Professor of genetics, latterly emeritus at the University of Nottingham. Clarke is particularly noted for his work on apostatic selection and other forms of frequency-dependent selection, and work on polymorphism in snails, much of it done during the 1960s. Later, he studied molecular evolution. He made the case for natural selection as an important factor in the maintenance of molecular variation, and in driving evolutionary changes in molecules through time. In doing so, he questioned the over-riding importance of random genetic drift advocated by King, Jukes, and Kimura. With Professor James J Murray Jnr, he carried out an extensive series of studies on speciation in land snails of the genus Partula inhabiting the volcanic islands of the Eastern Pacific. These studies helped illuminate the genetic changes that take place during the origin of species.

Sir Peter James Donnelly is an Australian-British mathematician and Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford, and the CEO of Genomics PLC. He is a specialist in applied probability and has made contributions to coalescent theory. His research group at Oxford has an international reputation for the development of statistical methodology to analyze genetic data.

Nicholas Hamilton Barton is a British evolutionary biologist.

Sir Roy Malcolm Anderson is a leading international authority on the epidemiology and control of infectious diseases. He is the author, with Robert May, of the most highly cited book in this field, entitled Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control. His early work was on the population ecology of infectious agents before focusing on the epidemiology and control of human infections. His published research includes studies of the major viral, bacterial and parasitic infections of humans, wildlife and livestock. This has included major studies on HIV, SARS, foot and mouth disease, bovine tuberculosis, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, influenza A, antibiotic resistant bacteria, the neglected tropical diseases and most recently COVID-19. Anderson is the author of over 650 peer-reviewed scientific articles with an h citation index of 125.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunetra Gupta</span> British novelist and epidemiologist

Sunetra Gupta is an Indian-born British infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. She has performed research on the transmission dynamics of various infectious diseases, including malaria, influenza and COVID-19, and has received the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and the Rosalind Franklin Award of the Royal Society. She is a member of the scientific advisory board of Collateral Global, an organisation which examines the global impact of COVID-19 restrictions.

Paul H. Harvey is a British evolutionary biologist. He is Professor of Zoology and was head of the zoology department at the University of Oxford from 1998 to 2011 and Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 2000 to 2011, holding these posts in conjunction with a professorial fellowship at Jesus College, Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niyaz Ahmed</span>

Niyaz Ahmed is a molecular epidemiologist, professor of microbial sciences, genomicist, and a veterinarian by training, based in Hyderabad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurence Hurst</span>

Laurence Daniel Hurst is a Professor of Evolutionary Genetics in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath and the director of the Milner Centre for Evolution.

Bryan Thomas Grenfell is a British population biologist and the Kathryn Briger and Sarah Fenton Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Viral phylodynamics is defined as the study of how epidemiological, immunological, and evolutionary processes act and potentially interact to shape viral phylogenies. Since the coining of the term in 2004, research on viral phylodynamics has focused on transmission dynamics in an effort to shed light on how these dynamics impact viral genetic variation. Transmission dynamics can be considered at the level of cells within an infected host, individual hosts within a population, or entire populations of hosts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Hemingway</span> British infectious diseases specialist

Janet Hemingway is a British infectious diseases specialist. She is the former Director of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and founding Director of Infection Innovation Consortium and Professor of Tropical Medicine at LSTM. She is current President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Simon Iain Hay, is a British epidemiologist. He is Professor for Global Health at the University of Washington and Director of Geospatial Science at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). From 2013-2015 he served as the 52nd President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Cleaveland</span> British veterinary surgeon and epidemiologist

Sarah Cleaveland is a veterinary surgeon and Professor of Comparative Epidemiology at the University of Glasgow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christl Donnelly</span> Professor of statistical epidemiology

Christl Ann Donnelly is a professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial College London, the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford. She serves as associate director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.

Peter William Harold Holland is a zoologist whose research focuses on how the evolution of animal diversity can be explained through evolution of the genome. He is the current Linacre Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.

Bacterial phylodynamics is the study of immunology, epidemiology, and phylogenetics of bacterial pathogens to better understand the evolutionary role of these pathogens. Phylodynamic analysis includes analyzing genetic diversity, natural selection, and population dynamics of infectious disease pathogen phylogenies during pandemics and studying intra-host evolution of viruses. Phylodynamics combines the study of phylogenetic analysis, ecological, and evolutionary processes to better understand of the mechanisms that drive spatiotemportal incidence and phylogenetic patterns of bacterial pathogens. Bacterial phylodynamics uses genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in order to better understand the evolutionary mechanism of bacterial pathogens. Many phylodynamic studies have been performed on viruses, specifically RNA viruses which have high mutation rates. The field of bacterial phylodynamics has increased substantially due to the advancement of next-generation sequencing and the amount of data available.

Julia Rose Gog is a British mathematician and professor of mathematical biology in the faculty of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. She is also a David N. Moore fellow, director of studies in mathematics at Queens' College, Cambridge and a member of both the Cambridge immunology network and the infectious diseases interdisciplinary research centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward C. Holmes</span>

Edward Charles Holmes is a British evolutionary biologist and virologist, and since 2012 a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Australia Fellow and professor at the University of Sydney. He is also an Honorary Visiting Professor at Fudan University, Shanghai, China (2019–present)

Keith A. Crandall is an American computational biologist, bioinformaticist, and population geneticist, at George Washington University, where he is the founding director of the Computational Biology Institute, and professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hayman (disease ecologist)</span> New Zealand epizootic epidemiologist

David Hayman is a New Zealand-based epizootic epidemiologist and disease ecologist whose general multi-disciplinary work focuses on the maintenance of infectious diseases within their hosts and the process of emergence and transmission to humans specifically related to bats. He has gathered data on the relationship between ecological degradation due to anthropogenic actions, and increased pathogen emergence in humans and animals. During COVID-19 he was involved as an expert in several international collaborations, some convened by the World Health Organization, and was a regular commentator in the New Zealand media about the country's response to the pandemic. He has had lead roles in research organisations at Massey University and Te Pūnaha Matatini and was the recipient of the 2017 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship Award. Since 2014 Hayman has been a professor at Massey University.

References

  1. "Professor Oliver Pybus".
  2. "Professor Oliver Pybus - Our People - About - Royal Veterinary College, RVC".
  3. "Virus Evolution". Academic.oup.com. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  4. "Pandemic Genomics".
  5. "ZSL Scientific Medal Winners" (PDF). Zoological Society of London .
  6. "Pathogen Phylodynamics: Unifying Evolution, Infection and Immunity". Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS).
  7. "Outstanding scientists elected as Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society".