My main area of interest is the evolution of diversity in pathogens, with particular reference to the infectious disease agents that are responsible for malaria, influenza and bacterial meningitis. I use simple mathematical models to generate new hypotheses regarding the processes that determine the population structure of these pathogens. I work closely with laboratory and field scientists both to develop these hypotheses and to test them.

Watkins ER, Penman BS, J, Buckee CO, Maiden MCJ & Gupta S (2015) Vaccination drives changes in metabolic and virulence profiles of Streptococcus pneumoniae. PLOS Pathogens 11:e1005034. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1005034 Wikramaratna PS, Lourenço J, Klenerman P, Pybus OG & Gupta S (2015) Effects of neutralising antibodies on escape from CD8+ T cell responses in HIV-1 infection. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 370:20140290. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0290 Wikramaratna PS, Pybus OG & Gupta S (2014). Contact between bird species of different lifespans can promote the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza strains. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111:10767-72. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1401849111 Buckee CO, Recker M, Watkins ER & Gupta S (2011) Role of stochastic processes in maintaining discrete strain structure in antigenically diverse pathogen populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci 108:15504-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102445108 Penman B, Pybus OG, Weatherall DJ & Gupta S (2009) Epistatic interactions between genetic disorders of hemoglobin can explain why the sickle cell gene is uncommon in the Mediterranean. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106: 21242-6 Recker, M., Pybus, O.G., Nee, S. & Gupta, S. (2007) The generation of influenza outbreaks by a network of host immune responses against a limited set of antigenic types. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 104:7711-6.