Jamie Blundell

Jamie is a Group Leader in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, and in the CRUK Cambridge Center Early Detection Program. He is also the UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, University of Cambridg Anthony L. Lyster Fellow, Queens’ College, University of Cambridge His work aims to understand and quantify the evolutionary dynamics going on inside our tissues as we age. Focusing predominantly on blood, his group uses novel genetic lineage tracking tools, deep sequencing of longitudinal samples and mathematical models to identify mutant clones which are under strong positive selection. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Cambridge in theoretical physics, studying the statistical physics of biological polymers and their networks. While at Stanford he worked closely with the Petrov lab (was a postdoc here 2011-2013), Daniel Fisher (with whom he was also a postdoc), Sasha Levy, and Gavin Sherlock on lineage tracking in barcoded yeast populations, where one can infer to a high degree of accuracy the distribution of fitness effects over time. Check out these two papers if you are interested in the topic: one and two. He also collaborated with Zoe Assaf on understanding staggered sweeps. More details of can be found at https://blundelllab.com/.