Andrew Rambaut

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Andrew Rambaut FRSE is a British evolutionary biologist, as of 2020 Professor of Molecular Evolution at the University of Edinburgh.

Rambaut earned a BSc in Zoology from the University of Edinburgh and a DPhil in Zoology from the University of Oxford in 1997.

He was based at Oxford until 2006, when he took up a Royal Society university research fellowship position and became Chair of Molecular Evolution at the University of Edinburgh in 2010.[1]; he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2014.

Rambaut's research is primarily on the "evolutionary and epidemiological study of viral pathogens of humans and animals".[1]

In 2007, he published a paper with Alexei Drummond describing BEAST (Bayesian evolutionary analysis sampling trees), a software package for evolutionary analysis by molecular sequence variation, which uses Bayesian inference techniques.[2][3] This is freely available on GitHub.[4] A year later, Rambaut set up Virological, an online “discussion forum for molecular evolution and epidemiology of viruses”.[5]

Science reported on 11 January 2020, that Rambaut published for the first time the genome of the COVID-19 coronavirus after it was sent to him by Edward C. Holmes.[6][7] Holmes has said that it “took 52 minutes from receiving the code … to publishing” on Virological.[8][9] The BBC Horizon episode The Vaccine stated: “When Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence of a mystery new virus on January 10th 2020, vaccine scientists around the world immediately sprang into action”.[10]

Rambaut is an attendee of the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).[11]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Professor Andrew Rambaut FRSE". Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
  2. ^ AJ Drummond and A Rambaut (2007) “BEAST: Bayesian evolutionary analysis sampling trees”, BMC Evolutionary Biology 7 vol. no 1, pages 1-8
  3. ^ "BEAST: Bayesian Evolutionary Analysis Sampling Trees". BEAST Software. 13 October 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  4. ^ "beast-dev/beast-mcmc". GitHub. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  5. ^ Virological on the Wayback Machine, 2 April 2016
  6. ^ “Novel 2019 coronavirus genome”, 10 January 2020. https://virological.org/t/novel-2019-coronavirus-genome/319
  7. ^ Jon Cohen (2020) “Chinese researchers reveal draft genome of virus implicated in Wuhan pneumonia outbreak”, January. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/chinese-researchers-reveal-draft-genome-virus-implicated-wuhan-pneumonia-outbreak
  8. ^ Kate Aubusson (2020) “Virus rebel Professor Edward Holmes named NSW Scientist of the Year”, 26 October 2020, Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/virus-rebel-professor-edward-holmes-named-nsw-scientist-of-the-year-20201026-p568qj.html
  9. ^ David Quammen (2020) “The Sobbing Pangolin”, 31 August 2020, New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/31/did-pangolins-start-the-coronavirus-pandemic
  10. ^ Horizon Special: The Vaccine, 10 June 2021. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09kw2jz
  11. ^ Sample, Ian (24 April 2020). "Who's who on secret scientific group advising UK government?". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 April 2020.

External links[]

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