Honors and AwardsJunior Research Fellowship, St. John’s College, University of Oxford. 2001. NSERC postgraduate Scholarship. 1999. Rhodes Scholarship, 1997.
Research Interests Michael Worobey uses an evolutionary approach to understand the origins, emergence and control of pathogens, in particular RNA viruses and retroviruses such as HIV and influenza virus. He integrates fieldwork; theory and methodology; molecular biology; and (especially) molecular evolutionary analysis of gene sequences in a phylogenetic framework. Questions under investigation include: (1) When, where, and how have AIDS viruses crossed into humans? (2) How does recombination shape viral genetic diversity? (3) What can viral sequences sampled from different time-points reveal about the tempo and mode of evolution? (4) Could ancestral viral sequences be useful for developing vaccines against HIV or hepatitis C virus? (5) Can a computational forward-simulation approach be used to accurately forecast future viral evolution and genetic diversity in a probabilistic framework? Current wet-lab projects in his Biosafety Level 3 facility involve recovery of damaged and/or ancient DNA from a variety of sources including paraffin-embedded human tissue specimens, blood smears, and museum specimens. The two main efforts are (1) reconstructing the emergence of HIV-1 group M in central Africa and North America using “fossil” HIV-1 sequences, and (2) investigating the evolution of AIDS-related viruses in wild-living African primates using non-invasively-collected samples. Read a profile of Michael Worobey in the Fall 2003 (Winter 2004) issue of Desert News & Views (pdf file)
Selected Publications
- Worobey M. 2005. Anthrax and the art of war (against ascertainment bias). 2005. Heredity, in press.
- Worobey M, Santiago ML, Keele BF, Ndjango J-BN, Joy JB, Labama BL, Dhed'a BD, Rambaut A, Sharp PM, Shaw GM, Hahn BH. 2004. Origin of AIDS: Contaminated polio vaccine theory refuted Nature 428: 820.
- Barnett OE, Worobey M, Holmes EC, Cooper A. 2004. Detection of TT virus among chimpanzees in the wild using a noninvasive technique. J Wildlife Dis 40: 230-237.
- Lemey P, Pybus OG, Rambaut A, Drummond AJ, Roques P, Worobey M, Vandamme1 AM. (2004). The molecular population genetics of HIV-1 group O. Genetics 167: 1059-1068.
- Damond F, Worobey M, Campa P, Farfara1 I, Colin G, Matheron S, Brun-Vézinet F, Robertson DL, Simon F. 2004. The identification of a highly divergent HIV-2 in France and a proposal for a new HIV-2 classification. AIDS Res Hum Retrov 20: 666-672.
- van Rij RP, Worobey M, Visser JA, Schuitemaker H. 2003. Evolution of R5 and X4 human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gag sequences in vivo: evidence for recombination. Virology 314: 451-459.
- Walker PR, Worobey M, Rambaut A, Holmes EC, and Pybus OG. 2003. Sexual transmission of HIV in Africa: other routes of infection are not the dominant contributor to the African epidemic. Nature 422: 679.
- Worobey M, Rambaut A, Pybus OG, and Robertson DL. 2002. Questioning the evidence for genetic recombination in the 1918 “Spanish flu” virus. Science 296: 211.
- Worobey M. 2001. A novel approach to detecting and measuring recombination: new insights into evolution in viruses, bacteria, and mitochondria. Mol Biol Evol 18:1425-1434.
- Jenkins GM, Worobey M, Woelk CH, and Holmes EC. 2001. Evidence for the non-quasispecies evolution of RNA viruses. Mol Biol Evol 18: 987-994.
- Worobey M, and Holmes EC. 2001. Homologous recombination in GB virus C/hepatitis G virus. Mol Biol Evol 18: 254-261.
- Worobey M. 2000. Extensive homologous recombination among widely divergent TT viruses. J Virol 74: 7666-7670.
- Worobey M and Holmes EC. 1999. Evolutionary aspects of recombination in RNA viruses. J Gen Virol 80: 2535-2543.
- Worobey M, Rambaut A, and Holmes EC. 1999. Widespread intra-serotype recombination in natural populations of dengue virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 96: 7352-7357.
- Holmes EC, Worobey M. and Rambaut A. 1999. Phylogenetic evidence for recombination in dengue virus. Mol Biol Evol 16: 405-409.
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