Trevor Bedford (virologist)
American computational virologist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trevor Bedford is an American computational virologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.[1] His research focuses on tools to speed the process of using genomic sequencing data to map the evolutionary trees of pathogens -- and thus yield insights into geographic spread, epidemic growth rate, and vaccine efficacy.[2]
Harvard University (Ph.D.)
Trevor Bedford | |
|---|---|
| Education | University of Chicago (BA) Harvard University (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | First warning of community spread of COVID-19 in the United States |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | Computational virologist |
Starting with an early system called Nextflu in 2015, Bedford and Richard A. Neher co-developed Nextstrain, an open source system for computing viral evolutionary trees from sequencing data.[3] In 2020, Bedford was able to use data from the Flu Tracking Project and Nextstrain to first document community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.[4]
He is listed as author, together with a number of Nextstrain colleagues (Neher, Emma Hodcroft, Cornelius Roemer) and 25 others, of Urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing nomenclature for monkeypox virus, published in August 2022.[5]
In 2021, the MacArthur Foundation recognized Bedford's work, naming him a 2021 MacArthur fellow.[6]
Education and career
Bedford graduated with a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2002 and obtained a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University in 2008.[1]
In 2020, he posted on Twitter about the first known community transmission of COVID-19 in the United States. That action was later cited as one of the actions that helped galvanize a rapid response to Covid on a national scale.[7]
In September 2021, he received a 7-year $9 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Later that same month, he was named as part of that year's MacArthur Fellows Program class.[8]
Selected publications
- Hadfield, James; Megill, Colin; Bell, Sidney M.; Huddleston, John; Potter, Barney; Callender, Charlton; Sagulenko, Pavel; Bedford, Trevor; Neher, Richard A. (2018). "Nextstrain: Real-time tracking of pathogen evolution". Bioinformatics. 34 (23): 4121–4123. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/bty407. PMC 6247931. PMID 29790939.
- Corey, Lawrence; Beyrer, Chris; Cohen, Myron S.; Michael, Nelson L.; Bedford, Trevor; Rolland, Morgane (2021). "SARS-CoV-2 Variants in Patients with Immunosuppression". New England Journal of Medicine. 385 (6): 562–566. doi:10.1056/NEJMsb2104756. PMC 8494465. PMID 34347959. S2CID 236927966.
- Perchetti, Garrett A.; Zhu, Haiying; Mills, Margaret G.; Shrestha, Lasata; Wagner, Cassia; Bakhash, Shah Mohamed; Lin, Michelle J.; Xie, Hong; Huang, Meei-Li; Mathias, Patrick; Bedford, Trevor; Jerome, Keith R.; Greninger, Alexander L.; Roychoudhury, Pavitra (2021). "Specific allelic discrimination of N501Y and other SARS-CoV-2 mutations by DDPCR detects B.1.1.7 lineage in Washington State". Journal of Medical Virology. 93 (10): 5931–5941. doi:10.1002/jmv.27155. PMC 8427099. PMID 34170525.
- Bedford, Trevor; et al. (2020). "Cryptic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Washington state". Science. 370 (6516): 571–575. doi:10.1126/science.abc0523. PMC 7810035. PMID 32913002.
- Annavajhala, Medini K.; Mohri, Hiroshi; Wang, Pengfei; Nair, Manoj; Zucker, Jason E.; Sheng, Zizhang; Gomez-Simmonds, Angela; Kelley, Anne L.; Tagliavia, Maya; Huang, Yaoxing; Bedford, Trevor; Ho, David D.; Uhlemann, Anne-Catrin (2021). "Emergence and expansion of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.526 after identification in New York". Nature. 597 (7878): 703–708. Bibcode:2021Natur.597..703A. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03908-2. PMC 8481122. PMID 34428777. S2CID 237292353.
- Kinganda-Lusamaki, Eddy; Black, Allison; Mukadi, Daniel B.; Hadfield, James; Mbala-Kingebeni, Placide; Pratt, Catherine B.; Aziza, Amuri; Diagne, Moussa M.; White, Bailey; Bisento, Nella; Nsunda, Bibiche; Akonga, Marceline; Faye, Martin; Faye, Ousmane; Edidi-Atani, Francois; Matondo-Kuamfumu, Meris; Mambu-Mbika, Fabrice; Bulabula, Junior; Di Paola, Nicholas; Pauthner, Matthias G.; Andersen, Kristian G.; Palacios, Gustavo; Delaporte, Eric; Sall, Amadou Alpha; Peeters, Martine; Wiley, Michael R.; Ahuka-Mundeke, Steve; Bedford, Trevor; Tamfum, Jean-Jacques Muyembe (2021). "Integration of genomic sequencing into the response to the Ebola virus outbreak in Nord Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo". Nature Medicine. 27 (4): 710–716. doi:10.1038/s41591-021-01302-z. PMC 8549801. PMID 33846610. S2CID 233222329.