Katrina Lythgoe

Dr. Katrina Lythgoe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford and a Tutorial Fellow at Brasenose College. She holds roles as Group Leader at the Big Data Institute and Investigator at the Pandemic Sciences Institute. Her academic journey includes a BA from Oxford, MSc from Imperial College London, and a PhD in population genetics from Edinburgh. Lythgoe’s research focuses on viral evolution and epidemiology, particularly HIV, Hepatitis B/C, and SARS-CoV-2. She leads projects integrating population genetics, modeling, and genomic surveillance to understand viral adaptation and transmission dynamics.

• Roles: Associate Professor, Tutorial Fellow, Group Leader (Big Data Institute), Pandemic Sciences Institute Investigator
• Educations: BA (Oxford), MSc (Imperial), PhD (Edinburgh)

Research interests include the evolution of chronic viral infections, within-host population dynamics, and genomic surveillance strategies. Key contributions include work on the ONS Covid Infection Survey as genetic lead, analyzing SARS-CoV-2 persistence and transmission chains. Her lab explores viral coevolution, treatment resistance, and pandemic response mechanisms.

Scientific awards include the Sir Henry Dale Fellowship. Recent work addresses optimal genomic surveillance methods and the interplay between within-host and population-scale viral evolution. Ongoing projects involve long-read sequencing of Hepatitis C virus and machine learning approaches for lineage identification in SARS-CoV-2.