Home

The King Lab investigates the contemporary evolution and ecology of
host-pathogen interactions

We are a diverse and multi-disciplinary team based in the Departments of Zoology and Microbiology & Immunology, University of British Columbia, as well as the Department of Biology, University of Oxford.
We test evolutionary and ecological hypotheses on a diversity of infectious disease systems across the tree of life. We use an integrated combination of experimental evolution, state-of-the-art genomics approaches, field collections for hypothesis-driven pathogen surveillance, comparative analyses, and theory. Our research focuses on links between host-pathogen interactions and big topics in biology:
⦁ Virulence evolution
⦁ Biodiversity loss and global climate change
⦁ Zoonoses and emerging infectious diseases
⦁ Protective microbiome
⦁ Social interactions
⦁ Sexual reproduction
The continual evolution of pathogens makes disease control challenging. We leverage our understanding of evolution to predict and mitigate against the dynamics of emerging and endemic pathogens.

Funding for our research is awarded by: