Dr Rosalind Harding
Dr Rosalind Harding
Tutorial Fellow in Human Sciences
Teaching Interests
I have been teaching human population genetics and evolution for the Human Sciences degree at Oxford since 2001.
Research Interests
Before I joined St John’s I was a Medical Research Council Scientist at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford, where I investigated population variation in haemoglobin genes. Understanding diversity in these genes required interdisciplinary studies across medical genetics, statistical population genetics and biological anthropology.
My research continues to have strong interdisciplinary links but is now directed towards evolutionary studies of clinically important bacterial pathogens. I share these interests with some of the research groups in the Zoology Department who work on disease. My current research projects are collaborations with the Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease research group at the John Radcliffe Hospital.
In a partnership with the Mathematical Genetics Group in the Statistics Department we aim to use new technologies for surveying whole genomes of large numbers of strains. I am particularly interested in studying the emergence of new pathogen strains, the implications of wide-spread antibiotic use, and the genetic relationships between so called ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria.
