DrBen Bellekom

I am a Post Doctoral Research Associate within the Research Group (VERG) in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. My research primarily focuses on the continued laboratory-based development of the Direct molecular Detection and Nanopore Sequencing (DDNS) method for poliovirus detection. Additionally, I am frequently involved in the running of workshops for genomic sequencing. Further, I am involved in the testing and comparison of non-targeted metagenomic and targeted molecular methods for the detection of viral pathogens in wastewater.

I completed my DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford, where I applied molecular metabarcoding methods and ecological network anaylsis to study biting Diptera community interactions in Ghana.