Research Fellow Image Jamie joined the LBEP as a PhD student in September 2018 to study the evolution of human pathogenic Legionella pneumophila, an opportunistic pathogen and the primary causative agent of Legionnaire’s disease. He completed his undergraduate degree in Microbiology at the University of Aberdeen, then joined the University of Edinburgh for a master’s degree in evolutionary genetics. During his PhD, Jamie complied a large, global collection of Legionella pneumophila genomes to conduct a genomic epidemiological analysis of Legionnaires disease in Scotland over a 30-year timeframe. He then compared the core and accessory genome diversity of clinical and environmental isolates through a mix of pangenome, network and association analysis techniques.Jamie continued his scientific career in LBEP as a postdoctoral researcher, studying gene flow in the evolution of Staphylococcus aureus lineages. Jamie is interested in the influence of horizontal gene transfer on bacterial evolution, and the role that mobile genetic elements, as well as bacterial immune defenses against these elements, can play in determining lineage boundaries within prokaryotic species.In his spare time, Jamie enjoys chess, scrabble and spending time outdoors. Jamie is a keen citizen scientist. When he is not looking at hospital bug genomes or troubleshooting bugs in his programming code, he is often taking pictures of bugs through the macro lens on his digital camera. This article was published on 2024-09-02
