My name is Xavier Didelot and I am a university lecturer at Imperial College London. My research interests are in statistical population genomics of bacteria, see below for more details and links to some freely available software. You can also access my biographical sketch, list of publications, reading list and contact details.
My research is in statistical population genomics applied to microbes. A key aim is to develop new statistical methods for the inference of bacterial evolution that can handle the large amounts of data made available by novel high-throughput sequencing techniques. Because of the inter-disciplinary nature of this work, I have broad interests in a variety of subjects:
I am a member of the Modernising Medical Microbiology consortium which is a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the Health Protection Agency, the Sanger Institute and the NHS, with the aim of revolutionizing our understanding of human pathogens through the use of whole-genome sequencing technology. Three major bacterial pathogens are under particular investigation: Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Other frequent collaborators include Daniel Falush (Leipzig), Mark Achtman (Cork), Sebastian Suerbaum (Hannover), Martin Maiden (Oxford), Aaron Darling (Calfornia-Davis) and Dan Lawson (Bristol).