Mahan Ghafari
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
I joined Lythgoe group in 2022 after completing my DPhil in Interdisciplinary Bioscience (DTP) at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford.
I am mainly interested in understanding the evolutionary and epidemiological processes involved in determining the rate at which viruses evolve over time. In my current postdoctoral work, I study the within-host evolutionary dynamics, and transmission, of chronic viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2 and HIV. My focus is on analysing whole genome sequencing data to better understand the within-host evolution and transmission of these viruses, including the roles of selection, recombination, and compartmentalisation.
My pronouns are he/him.
Recent publications
-
Prevalence of persistent SARS-CoV-2 in a large community surveillance study.
Journal article
Ghafari M. et al, (2024), Nature
-
Revisiting the origins of the Sobemovirus genus: A case for ancient origins of plant viruses.
Journal article
Ghafari M. et al, (2024), PLoS Pathog, 20
-
A quantitative evaluation of the impact of vaccine roll-out rate and coverage on reducing deaths: insights from the first 2 years of COVID-19 epidemic in Iran.
Journal article
Ghafari M. et al, (2023), BMC medicine, 21
-
Insights into SARS-CoV-2 in Angola during the COVID-19 peak: Molecular epidemiology and genome surveillance.
Journal article
Francisco NM. et al, (2023), Influenza and other respiratory viruses, 17
-
The recency and geographical origins of the bat viruses ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2
Preprint
Pekar JE. et al, (2023)