Will Harvey
Core Scientist in Quantitative Predictive Biology
Contact details
Address
- Street
-
The Roslin Institute
Easter Bush Campus
Midlothian - City
- Post code
- EH25 9RG
Background
I am an evolutionary biologist fundamentally motivated to understand the mechanisms that shape the diversity of life. I'm particularly interested in how natural selection governs relationships between pathogens and their hosts and how an understanding of these processes can be used to inform disease control and intervention strategies. Natural selection acts upon variation in observable traits that are encoded by genetic differences and favours genetic variants associated with adaptations. These adaptations can influence things like antigenicity, drug resistance, virulence or host preference.
My research tends to focus on fast-evolving viruses, where there often exists a population of competing viral strains distinguished from one another by a range of genetic differences. We aim to determine the genetic basis of variation in traits that influence how the virus interacts with the host and how the combination of traits a virus strain has influences its chance of evolutionary success. With these strands of information, we can then attempt to predict the evolutionary potential of a virus strain from its genetic makeup and assign probabilities to a range of possible outcomes at the population level.
Area of expertise
Pathogens on which I have worked include: Influenza A virus (IAV), Influenza B virus, Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV).
Qualifications
2016 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Glasgow.
2010 BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences (Evolutionary Biology), University of Edinburgh.
Research summary
Role of reassortment in evolution of avian influenza viruses.
I am interested in the how changes in the genome (either mutations or reassortment which is the swapping of gene segments) impact various characteristics of the virus which affect the fitness of the virus or how well it spreads in various host populations.
For a summary of our recent work in this area, see the pre-print "Genetic reassortment and diversification of host specificity have driven evolutionary trajectories of lineages of panzootic H5N1 influenza" at https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.20.670882
Antigenic evolution of human influenza viruses
Mutations in the surface glycoproteins of human influenza viruses may affect recognition of the virus by antibodies generated by a previous infection or vaccination. Such mutations determine the antigenic phenotype of a virus, a key determinant of the viral fitness.
Key publications:
A Bayesian approach to incorporate structural data into the mapping of genotype to antigenic phenotype of influenza A (H3N2) viruses https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010885
Identification of low-and high-impact hemagglutinin amino acid substitutions that drive antigenic drift of influenza A (H1N1) viruses https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005526