Jessica Hedge

I’m a postdoctoral research scientist working within the MacLean Lab in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford. My research focuses on the molecular evolution and population dynamics of microbial pathogens. Specifically, I apply population genetics approaches to microbial whole genome sequence data to understand infectious disease evolution, both within individuals and across populations.

Contact

Department of Zoology
University of Oxford
Oxford OX1 3PS
jessica.hedge@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Google Scholar profile
ORCiD

Publications

* denotes equal contribution

Hedge, J., Lamagni, T., Moore, G., Walker, J., Crook, D., & Chand, M. (2017). Mycobacterium chimaera Isolates from Heater–Cooler Units, United Kingdom. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23(7), 1227.

Chand, M., Lamagni, T., Kranzer, K., Hedge, J., Moore, G., Parks, S., et al., (2016) Insidious risk of severe Mycobacterium chimaera infection in cardiac surgery patients. Clinical Infectious Diseases, p.ciw754. DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciw754

Hedge, J. and Wilson, D. J. (2016) Practical approaches for detecting selection in microbial genomes. PLOS Computational Biology 12(2), e1004739 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004739

Walker, T. M*., Kohl, T. A.*, Omar, S. V.*, Hedge, J.*, Elias, C. D. O., Bradley, P., Iqbal, Z., Feuerriegel, S., Niehaus, K., Wilson, D. J., Clifton, D. A., Kapatai, G., Ip, C. L. C., Bowden, R., Drobniewski, F., Allix-Béguec, C., Gaudin, C., Parkhill, J., Diel, R., Supply, P., Crook, D. W., Smith, E. G., Walker, A. S., Ismail, N., Niemann, S., Peto, T. E. A. and the MMM Informatics Group (2015). Whole-genome sequencing for prediction of Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug susceptibility and resistance: A retrospective cohort study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases 15(10), 1193-1202 DOI: 10.1016/s1473-3099(15)00062-6

Hedge, J. and Wilson, D. J. (2014) Bacterial phylogenetics is robust to recombination but demographic inference is not. mBio 5(6):e02158-14 DOI: 10.1128/mbio.02158-14(15)00062-6

Wong, T. H. N., Dearlove, B. L., Hedge, J., Giess, A. P., Piazza, P., Trebes, A., Paul, J., Smit, E., Smith, E. G., Sutton, J., Wilcox, M. H., Dingle, K. E., Peto, T. E. A., Crook, D. W., Wilson, D. J. & Wyllie, D. H. (2013) Whole genome sequencing and de novo assembly identifies Sydney-like variant noroviruses and recombinants during the Winter 2012/2013 outbreak in England. Virology Journal 10(1), 1 DOI: 10.1186/1743-422x-10-335

Hedge, J., Lycett, S. J. and Rambaut, A. (2013) Real-time characterization of the molecular epidemiology of an influenza pandemic. Biology Letters 9(5) DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.0331(15)00062-6

Baillie, G., Galiano, M., Agapow, P-M., Myers, R., Chiam, R., Gall, A., Palser, A., Watson, S., Hedge, J., Underwood, A., Platt S., Mclean, E., Pebody, R., Rambaut, A., Green, J., Daniels, R., Pybus, O., Kellam, P. & Zambon, M. (2012) Evolutionary dynamics of local pandemic H1N1/09 influenza lineages revealed by whole genome analysis. Journal of Virology 86(1), 11-18 DOI: 10.1128/jvi.05347-11

Hayman, D.T., Johnson, N., Horton, D.L., Hedge, J., Wakeley, P.R., Banyard, A.C., Zhang, S., Alhassan, A. & Fooks, A.R. (2011) Evolutionary history of rabies in Ghana. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 5, e1001. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001001

Meehan, C.J., Hedge, J., Robertson, D.L., McCormack, G.P. & Travers, S.A. (2010) Emergence, dominance, and possible decline of CXCR4 infection. Journal of Medical Virology 82, 2004-2012. DOI: 10.1002/jmv.21922

CV

2016-present: Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford (MacLean Lab)
I am currently investigating the genomic determinants of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

2013-2016: Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford (Modernising Medical Microbiology Group)
During this postdoc, I used phylogenetics-based approaches to investigate adaptation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and investigated the application of phylogenetics to recombining bacterial populations. This podcast describes some of the work carried out by the group.

2009-2013: PhD Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh (supervised by Andrew Rambaut and Mark Woolhouse) (thesis)
My PhD focused on applying Bayesian phylogenetic methods to characterise the molecular evolution and epidemiology of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic.

2008-2009: MSc Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester

2004-2008: BSc (Hons) Biology with Industrial Experience, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester