Fiona Brinkman

SFU Associate Program Director, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry


PathogenomicsMicrobial evolutionInfectious disease genomic epidemiologyImmunityAllergy

Infectious disease control needs to be made more “sustainable”. We need to reduce selective pressure on pathogens to evolve antimicrobial resistance. We need to control infectious disease outbreaks and associated immune disorders with a better understanding of the genetic, environmental and social factors that impact disease spread and severity. Genomics and bioinformatics provide powerful methods that can aid such efforts and improve our understanding of microbial virulence, microbial evolution and ourselves. The Brinkman laboratory comprises an interdisciplinary bioinformatics and “wet-lab” environment, developing and applying bioinformatics tools to investigate key infectious disease-causing microbes and microbiomes, and identifying better ways to track and control them. Approaches are also being applied to better understand and protect microbiomes required for both population and environmental health. Analyses include use of more integrative, system-based approaches, robust ontologies, data integration, and machine learning methods, and interactive web-based data visualizations.