Reconstructing the evolutionary history of pathogens using ancient DNA
About the Project
Are you interested in using ancient DNA to understand the long-term evolution of infectious disease? This is an exciting opportunity to join the University of Oxford as a DPhil candidate, working at the intersection of ancient DNA, pathogen genomics, archaeology, and evolutionary medicine.
This four-year DPhil studentship is funded by the Royal Society for UK/home students, with fees covered at the home rate and a stipend provided at the UKRI rate. The successful candidate will join the DPhil in Genomic Medicine and Statistics programme, based at the Centre for Human Genetics, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. The project will also involve close collaboration with the ancient DNA laboratory at the School of Archaeology.
Infectious diseases have been among the most powerful forces shaping human history and evolution, influencing patterns of mortality, immunity, migration, and cultural change over thousands of years. This project will focus on reconstructing the evolutionary history of zoonotic pathogens: infectious agents that can spread between animals and humans.
The successful candidate will use a combination of wet-lab and computational approaches. The laboratory work will involve ancient DNA methods, including target enrichment strategies designed to recover low-abundance pathogen DNA from archaeological samples. The computational work will involve genomic and evolutionary analyses of ancient pathogen sequences.
The project will be supported by a supervisory team including Dr Evan Irving-Pease, Professor Greger Larson, and Dr Joel Alves.
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