Dr Varsha Mathur

PhD (University of British Columbia), BSc. Hons (University of British Columbia)

Nicholas Kurti Junior Research Fellow, Brasenose College

EMBO Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biology, Oxford

Academic background and previous positions

PhD in Botany (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)

Undergraduate teaching areas

Second and third year biology tutorials in advanced cell biology

Graduate teaching areas

Bioinformatics lecturer (Doctoral Training Program)

Research interests

I am an evolutionary biologist studying how parasites evolve. In particular, I work on diverse single-celled eukaryotes (known as protists) to understand the genetic and cellular characteristics that underlie major lifestyle transitions.

Publications

Mathur V*, Wakeman KC, Keeling PJ. Parallel functional reduction in the mitochondria of apicomplexan parasites. Current Biology. 31: 2920-2928.e4. (2021)

Mathur V*, Kwong WK, Husnik F, et al. Phylogenomics identifies a new major subgroup of apicomplexans, Marosporida class nov., with extreme apicoplast genome reduction. Genome Biology & Evolution. 13 (2021)

Keeling PJ, Mathur V*, Kwong WK. Corallicolids: The elusive coral-infecting apicomplexans. PLoS Pathogens. 17(9): e1009845 (2021)

Mathur V*, Kolisko M, Hehenberger E, Irwin NAT, Leander BS, Kristmundsson A, Freeman MA, Keeling PJ. Multiple independent origins of apicomplexan-like parasites. Current Biology. 29, 2936-2941.e5 (2019)

Kwong WK, del Campo J, Mathur V*, Vermeij MJ, Keeling PJ. A widespread coral-infecting apicomplexan with chlorophyll biosynthesis genes. Nature. 568, 103–107 (2019)

E-mail address[email protected]

Website: https://protists.co.uk/varsha_mathur.html

https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-varsha-mathur

Twitter @varsh_mathur