Mr Jacob Westaway
Bioinformatician
Qualifications:
Honours in Biomedical Science, Griffith University, 2013; Bachelor of Biomedical Science, Griffith University, 2012
Approved level of HDR supervision at Charles Darwin University:
Secondary supervisor for PhD
Location:
Darwin – Royal Darwin Hospital
Biography:
Jacob is a bioinformatician with experience in the application of computational methods to the field of molecular biology. For his PhD, Jacob used such methods to investigate the gut microbiome of preterm infants born in North Queensland, Australia, exploring its relationship to a host of clinical variables and the impact of early life probiotic prophylaxis.
At Menzies, Jacob is now using similar computational methods to investigate parasite and host genomic variants contributing to the development of severe Plasmodium knowlesi malaria.
Research Themes
- Parasite and human genetic risk factors for emerging Plasmodium knowlesi malaria.