Current research

I work in Professor Peter White's molecular microbiology lab at UNSW Sydney. I lead several bioinformatics-based projects as well as providing support for a number of wet lab projects including molecular epidemiology of viruses and the detection of viruses (including SARS-CoV2) in wastewater. See the White lab website here.

Watch this for a summary of my thesis in one minute ------>

Paleovirology

Paleovirology is the study of viral fossils in the DNA of host organisms. Viral fossils have been identified in every known vertebrate, and can provide a record of past infections for an organism. Using these fossils we can trace the evolution of viral families, and identify when and how frequently viruses jumped between different species.

I focus on viral fossils in marsupials and investigate the unique viruses that have evolved over millions of years in Australia.

Are viral fossils really just junk?

Viral fossils, also called Endogenous Viral Elements (EVEs) are ubiquitous throughout animal genomes. The current understanding is that they are accidental remnants from ancient infections.

I aim to challenge this theory and investigate the function of EVEs inside cells. Using a variety of DNA and RNA sequencing techniques combined with novel bioinformatics workflows, I aim to elucidate whether EVEs are maintained in genomes for a purpose, or whether they are simply relics from ancient infections.

Expanding the global virome

Almost all studies of viruses are based on either human viruses, or animals humans have close contact with, for example livestock and pets. However, this is only a tiny percentage of all the viruses in the world.

Aside from discovering new viruses to study the evolution of viruses, it is also important to understand what viruses are circulating in an ecosystem to prevent zoonosis and future pandemics, and help with conservation of endangered species.

I utilise RNA-Sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to discover new viruses in a range of understudied vertebrate groups including snakes, caecilians, frogs, salamanders and marsupials in an aim to understand more about the global virome.