Dr Francois Balloux

I lead the Statistical Molecular Genetics (SMoG) group. Our research aims at taking advantage of genetic and genomic data to solve questions in epidemiology and public health.  To this aim, we develop new methodological tools and reconstruct epidemics and outbreaks of human pathogens using genetic sequence data.

Short Bio

I was trained as a population geneticist and obtained my PhD in 2000 from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). After a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh, I was offered a position in the Department of Genetics in Cambridge in 2002. There, I led a group working  mainly on human genetics for five years. In 2007, I joined the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and the newly founded MRC Outbreaks Centre. This move was motivated by my desire to work at the interface between genetics and epidemiology and to contribute to research more directly relevant to Public Health.

Recent Representative Publications

• Morelli G; Song Y; Mazzoni CJ; Eppinger M; Roumagnac P; Wagner DM; Feldkamp M; Kusecek B; et al. (2010). Yersinia pestis genome sequencing identifies patterns of global phylogenetic diversity. Nat Genet. 42:1140-1143. DOI.

• Jombart T; Devillard S; Balloux F. (2010). Discriminant analysis of principal components: a new method for the analysis of genetically structured populations. BMC Genet. 11:94. DOI.

• Tanabe K; Mita T; Jombart T; Eriksson A; Horibe S; Palacpac N; Ranford-Cartwright L; Sawai H; et al. (2010). Plasmodium falciparum accompanied the human expansion out of Africa. Curr Biol. 20:1283-1289. DOI.

• Jombart T; Eggo RM; Dodd PJ; Balloux F. (2010). Reconstructing disease outbreaks from genetic data: a graph approach. Heredity. DOI.

• Nübel U; Dordel J; Kurt K; Strommenger B; Westh H; Shukla SK; Zemlicková H; Leblois R; et al. (2010). A timescale for evolution, population expansion, and spatial spread of an emerging clone of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. PLoS Pathog. 6:e1000855. DOI.