معرفی
Azim Ansari is an Associate Professor and Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine, leading the Statistical Genomics of Host–Pathogen Interactions group within the Experimental Medicine Division at the Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research.
Education:
- MEng – Engineering (2009)
- DPhil – Statistical Genetics, University of Oxford (2014)
Research focus: Ansari’s work centres on deciphering host–pathogen interactions using large-scale genomic data, with particular emphasis on hepatitis B, C and HIV infections. By integrating paired human and viral whole-genome sequences from deeply phenotyped cohorts, his group dissects how host polymorphisms shape viral evolution and clinical outcomes.
Methodological themes: The lab combines statistical genetics, Bayesian inference and machine learning to quantify host–virus genetic interactions, identify viral sites under host immune selection, and build predictive models of disease progression. Additional interests span population genetics, pathogen evolution, bioinformatics and clinical microbiology.
Recent publication trends: Ansari’s 2023-2025 output demonstrates a strong emphasis on methodological innovation in viral genomics (e.g., HEPTILE amplicon sequencing, Castanet pipeline, long-read HBV transcriptomics) alongside epidemiological studies of HBV/HCV prevalence and HIV remission in paediatric cohorts. The work is inherently translational, aiming to inform diagnostics, surveillance and therapeutic strategies.
Honours & funding:
- Sir Henry Dale Fellowship – Royal Society & Wellcome Trust (2020)
Group & collaborations: Ansari leads an interdisciplinary team generating and analysing paired host–virus data from large European, African and South-Asian cohorts, with active collaborations in public-health programmes such as HepFREEPak and the Pearl liver-cancer early-detection study.
