Contributors

Meet some of the people featured in the October 2017 issue of The Scientist.

| 3 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
3:00
Share

BRAD ZIEGLERAndrew Read’s interest in natural history and evolution began when he was a child growing up in New Zealand. The islands are home to many “strange and weird birds and animals,” he says; their uniqueness and diversity prompted him to think about how they came to be. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the University of Otago, Read moved to the University of Oxford to pursue graduate studies in bird evolution. There, his interests began to diverge from birds to something much smaller and faster-evolving: pathogens. The pace of infections enthralled him, and he recognized that by studying infectious disease, he could observe evolution in real time. “I’ve been working on them ever since,” he says. How pathogens evolve is fundamentally important to human health, he says, and such research could positively affect society. After a series of faculty positions, first at the University of Tromsø in Norway and then the University of Edinburgh, Read moved to the U.S. in 2007 to set up a lab at Penn State’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics. Throughout his career, he’s pursued a variety of questions from a population-biology perspective, including why certain pathogens make us sicker than others, how pathogens compete within the same host, and what factors lead to drug resistance.

PETER KERRIn his early years as a practicing veterinarian, Peter Kerr had no intention of pursuing a career in research. “I thought I wanted to be a country veterinarian,” he says. “I loved working with animals.” But after working as a consultant to help control disease on pig farms, Kerr began to wonder how the same pathogen could be completely benign on one farm and cause rampant disease on another. To understand the answers to this question, Kerr knew he needed to arm himself with a solid background in molecular virology. This became the focus of his PhD studies at the Australian National University, and ultimately, “led me into this area of viral pathogenesis, of trying to understand how viruses cause disease,” he explains.

After completing his PhD, Kerr was recruited by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 1990. There he spent 24 years pursuing his interest in viral virulence. He then moved to the University of Sydney, from which he officially retired at the end of last year. Unofficially, however, “I’m keeping busy.” Kerr is an honorary fellow at the Marie Bashir Institute at the University of Sydney, and since 2008, he’s been working with colleagues Andrew Read and Edward Holmes on questions surrounding the evolution of viral virulence.

In this issue, Read and Kerr delve into the evolution of ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • Aggie Mika

    This person does not yet have a bio.

Published In

October 2017

A Natural Archive

The practical challenges of storing data in DNA

Share
May digest 2025 cover
May 2025, Issue 1

Study Confirms Safety of Genetically Modified T Cells

A long-term study of nearly 800 patients demonstrated a strong safety profile for T cells engineered with viral vectors.

View this Issue
iStock

TaqMan Probe & Assays: Unveil What's Possible Together

Thermo Fisher Logo
Meet Aunty and Tackle Protein Stability Questions in Research and Development

Meet Aunty and Tackle Protein Stability Questions in Research and Development

Unchained Labs
Detecting Residual Cell Line-Derived DNA with Droplet Digital PCR

Detecting Residual Cell Line-Derived DNA with Droplet Digital PCR

Bio-Rad
How technology makes PCR instruments easier to use.

Making Real-Time PCR More Straightforward

Thermo Fisher Logo

Products

fujirebio-square-logo

Fujirebio Receives Marketing Clearance for Lumipulse® G pTau 217/ β-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio In-Vitro Diagnostic Test

The Scientist Placeholder Image

Biotium Launches New Phalloidin Conjugates with Extended F-actin Staining Stability for Greater Imaging Flexibility

Leica Microsystems Logo

Latest AI software simplifies image analysis and speeds up insights for scientists

BioSkryb Genomics Logo

BioSkryb Genomics and Tecan introduce a single-cell multiomics workflow for sequencing-ready libraries in under ten hours