Scott Beatson

Associate Professor Scott Beatson is a faculty member in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at The University of Queensland (UQ). He holds an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship and specializes in bacterial pathogenomics, focusing on whole-genome sequencing to study bacterial transmission, pathogenesis, and antibiotic resistance. His research group has conducted pivotal analyses of multidrug-resistant pathogens like the E. coli ST131 pandemic clone and pandrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.

Beatson earned a PhD from UQ (2002) and conducted postdoctoral research in the UK, supported by fellowships from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (University of Oxford) and the UK Medical Research Council (University of Birmingham). He has led a research group at UQ since 2008, contributing to over 120 peer-reviewed articles and impactful software tools like BRIG and EasyFig.

His research interests span bacteriology, genomics, epigenetics, and molecular evolution, with a focus on clinically relevant pathogens. Recent studies include genomic analysis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria for Queensland Genomics and phylogenomic studies of E. coli ST131 (PNAS 2014).

Beatson has received the Frank Fenner Award (2016) and secured funding from NHMRC, ARC, and industry partnerships. His lab collaborates with the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre and the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics. He is actively involved in supervising PhD candidates and advancing genomic surveillance tools like HAIviz for healthcare-associated infections.