Dr Matthew Cotten

Senior Staff Scientist

Alumni

This person is a member of Sanger Institute Alumni.

Matthew Cotten describes the evolution of medically important viruses. He is developing high throughput methods for generating and analysing virus genomic sequences from clinical samples. He recently assisted with efforts to sequence Ebolavirus locally in Sierra Leone and he has led the group's work on MERS-Coronavirus.

Current work
1. Outbreak sequencing (Ebolavirus, MERS-Coronavirus)
2. Agnostic sequencing for discovering novel virus variants and for assessing zoonotic risks
4. Special application algorithms for virus genome analysis
5. Large scale sequencing projects including Norovirus, RSV, Hepatitis C Virus

Previous work
1. HIV-2 evolution, Viral diagnostics and viral load measurements in African setting
2. Drug discovery, identifying novel targets for antiviral drugs
3. Mechanisms of virus entry into mammalian cells
4. Creation of synthetic viruses for gene delivery applications
5. Virus activation of host inflammatory and apoptotic responses
6. Small nuclear RNA molecules involved in mRNA processing
7. Mechanisms of chromatin assembly, how is newly synthesized mammalian DNA packaged into chromatin?
8. The role of histone acetylation in activating gene expression

My timeline

• Joined the Sanger Institute

• Research Scientist, MRC Gambia

• Group Leader, Axxima Pharmaceutical, Munich, Germany

• Group Leader, Institute for Molecular Pathology, Vienna Austria

• Postdoc, Institute for Molecular Pathology, Vienna Austria

• Postdoc, Vanderbilt University

• PhD University of Iowa