Ian Goodhead

After completing my undergraduate degree at the University of Keele in 2001, I moved to Cambridge, where I worked at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for a number of years. Initially sequencing and finishing bacterial and parasite genomes important in human and veterinary health, I moved onto the implementation of new sequencing technologies, some of which are now mainstream.

I left Cambridge in 2007 to undertake a PhD at the University of Liverpool in the molecular genetics and host/parasite interaction of Trypanosoma brucei – a protozoan parasite responsible for “Sleeping Sickness” in sub-Saharan Africa. After some postdoctoral research into bacterial endosymbiosis in the same system, within the vector of the African Trypanosome – the Tsetse fly – I moved to Salford in 2015 to take up a lectureship position.

My research focuses on the utilization of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies to better understand microbial pathogenesis, infection, host/pathogen interaction and the evolution of symbiosis. My recent research interests involve combining multiple “‘omics” strategies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, to elucidate the genomic architecture of endosymbionts in the context of attenuating pathogenesis and evolving alongside their insect hosts. I have grant funding from the Wellcome Trust, The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Royal Society.