I have been Professor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Warwick and
Head of the Division of Microbiology and Infection at Warwick Medical School since April 2013. I am dually qualified as a scientist (BA from Cambridge, PhD from Imperial) and as a medic/clinical bacteriologist (MBBS from London Hospital, MD from Barts, FRCPath), and benefit from Research-Council funding for both bioinformatics and laboratory-based molecular bacteriology projects. My research interests focus on bacterial pathogenesis and the exploitation of sequence data, particularly high-throughput sequencing data. For more information on my research activities, see the Pallen Group web page and my research profile.

I have over 140 publications listed in PubMed, including papers in high-impact journals such as JAMA, NEJM, PNAS, EMBO J, Lancet, NAR, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Reviews Microbiology. You can access my publications on Google Scholar. Recently, I have published three senior-author papers on the genomics and metagenomics of the German STEC outbreak of 2011:

• A culture-independent sequence-based metagenomics approach to the investigation of an outbreak of Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli O104:H4. JAMA. 2013 Apr 10;309:1502-10
• Performance comparison of benchtop high-throughput sequencing platforms. Nat Biotechnol. 2012 May;30:434-9
• Open-source genomic analysis of Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli O104:H4. N Engl J Med. 2011 Aug 25;365:718-24

I teach on microbiology and human genome evolution: my recent lectures and research talks are available on YouTube

Read the five-star reviews!: "A Grand and Glorious Guide to Evolution..."

I am currently writing a book on The Last Days of Smallpox.

Contact Details
Snailmail: Division of Microbiology and Infection
Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
Tel: 024 761 50392 | E-mail: m.pallen@warwick.ac.uk

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News and Media

• My first peer-reviewed paper in the humanities: The ‘Annie Hypothesis': Did the Death of His Daughter Cause Darwin to ‘Give up Christianity’?
• Blog post and storify Tweet roundup from IOM Microbial threats meeting on Science and Applications of Microbial Genomics in Washington DC, June 2012
• Me introducing Professor Alice Roberts (whom I had a hand in recruiting) at Darwin Day talk for 2012
• On Radio 4 show In our Time with Melvyn Bragg (see also blog entry)
• Instigator/adviser to Rap Guide to Evolution videos and NYC show: I star in rap video: I'm a African!!
• Rough Guide to Evolution given to all ~6000 Birmingham students as "Great Read at Birmingham" in academic year 2011-12: blog coverage here
• The Speckled Monster (collaboration with Birmingham Rep and ThinkTank on smallpox eradication): blog post; video
• Origin of Species in Dub, a celebration of Darwin's masterpiece realised through the medium of reggae music, in collaboration with Jamaican colleague Dominic White
• During a research leave fellowship while working on a PhD, I led the Imperial College team to victory in the 1995-6 series of University Challenge. To see how our performances compare to those of other teams in the programme's recent history, visit Sean Blanchflower's site.