Rate My Professor James Cotton

Professor James Cotton is Professor (Evolution & Diversity) in the School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine at the University of Glasgow. He earned a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford and completed his PhD on gene family evolution at the University of Glasgow under Roderic Page. Following his doctorate, he held postdoctoral positions in phylogenetics and molecular evolution at the Natural History Museum in London with Mark Wilkinson and at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth with James McInerney. He served as an RCUK Academic Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London for three years. From 2010 to 2022, he was a Senior Staff Scientist in the parasite genomics group at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Since April 2022, he has been at the University of Glasgow, and he also holds an Honorary Senior Lecturer position at the Royal Veterinary College since July 2016. He is a member of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology and serves as an Associate Editor for PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

James Cotton's research focuses on the genetics and genomics of eukaryotic parasites, particularly those causing neglected tropical diseases. He builds genomic data resources to investigate parasite biology, population genetics, evolution, and epidemiology. His projects include Leishmania species in Ethiopia for cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis, Haemonchus contortus as a model for anthelmintic drug resistance, Schistosoma for genetic surveillance of resistance emergence, Onchocerca volvulus, and Guinea worm. Key publications encompass 'The genome of Onchocerca volvulus, agent of river blindness' (2016), 'Evolutionary genomics of epidemic visceral leishmaniasis in the Indian subcontinent' (2016), 'Global genome diversity of the Leishmania donovani complex' (2020), 'TRPtracker: a community database for monitoring praziquantel sensitivity at TRPMPZQ variants' (2026), and 'Analyses of emerging macrocyclic lactone resistance: speed and signature of ivermectin and moxidectin selection and evidence of a shared genetic locus' (2025). He leads grants including those from the Wellcome Trust on schistosomiasis treatment failure (2025-2030), Defra on anthelmintic resistance management (2025-2027), and BBSRC on resistance in sheep scab mite (2024-2027).