Associate Professor Scott Beatson

Associate Professor

School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
Faculty of Science
scott.beatson@uq.edu.au
+61 7 336 54863

Overview

Scott Beatson is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Career Development Fellow at The University of Queensland (UQ). He specializes in bacterial pathogenomics: using whole-genome sequencing to investigate transmission, pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Recent work from his group includes genomic analyses of pandrug resistant enterobacteriaceae and the multidrug resistant Escherichia coli ST131 pandemic clone. He was awarded a PhD from UQ for his work in bacterial pathogenesis in 2002 and developed his career in bacterial genomics in the United Kingdom with the support of fellowships from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (University of Oxford) and the UK Medical Research Council (University of Birmingham). Since returning to Australia he has held fellowships from both the NHMRC and ARC and has led a successful research group in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at UQ since 2008. He is also a member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre and the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics. In 2016 he received the Frank Fenner Award from the Australian Society for Microbiology in recognition of his contribution to microbiology research in Australia.

Research Impacts

In the past five years the Beatson Lab has focussed on clinically relevant pathogens and exploiting genomic technologies in the clinical setting. His group regularly reports the genome analyses of antibiotic resistant bacteria to the major tertiary hospitals in Brisbane as part of Queensland Genomics. He is the senior author of a phylogenomic study of E. coli ST131 in PNAS (2014; 312 citations), and joint first author of a landmark publication on the E. coli O157 genome (2006; 413 citations). Genome analysis software developed in his group is widely used i.e. BRIG (2011; 1026 citations) and EasyFig (2011; 756 citations). Since 1998 he has co-authored more than 120 journal articles (9756 citations), including 61 in the past 5 years and 43 with greater than 50 citations (Google Scholar 22/08/19). He regularly publishes in high-impact, general interest or specialist medical/microbiology journals including Science, PNAS, Clin Infect Dis, Nat Commun and MBio.

Qualifications

  • Masters (Coursework) of Science, The University of Manchester
  • Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland
  • Masters (Coursework) of Science, University of Otago
  • Bachelor of Science, University of Otago

Publications

  • Forde, Brian M., Roberts, Leah W., Phan, Minh-Duy, Peters, Kate M., Fleming, Brittany A., Russell, Colin W., Lenherr, Sara M., Myers, Jeremy B., Barker, Adam P., Fisher, Mark A., Chong, Teik-Min, Yin, Wai-Fong, Chan, Kok-Gan, Schembri, Mark A., Mulvey, Matthew A. and Beatson, Scott A. (2019). Population dynamics of an Escherichia coli ST131 lineage during recurrent urinary tract infection. Nature Communications, 10 (1) 3643, 3643. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11571-5

  • Bartley, Paul B., Ben Zakour, Nouri L., Stanton-Cook, Mitchell, Muguli, Raghuram, Prado, Luis, Garnys, Vyt, Taylor, Katherine, Barnett, Timothy C., Pinna, Glen, Robson, Jennifer, Paterson, David L., Walker, Mark J., Schembri, Mark A. and Beatson, Scott A. (2015). Hospital-Wide Eradication of a Nosocomial Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 1 Outbreak. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 62 (3), 273-279. doi: 10.1093/cid/civ870

  • Alikhan, Nabil-Fareed, Petty, Nicola K., Ben Zakour, Nouri L. and Beatson, Scott A. (2011). BLAST Ring Image Generator (BRIG): Simple prokaryote genome comparisons. BMC Genomics, 12 (402) 402, 1-10. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-12-402

View all Publications

Publications

Featured Publications

  • Forde, Brian M., Roberts, Leah W., Phan, Minh-Duy, Peters, Kate M., Fleming, Brittany A., Russell, Colin W., Lenherr, Sara M., Myers, Jeremy B., Barker, Adam P., Fisher, Mark A., Chong, Teik-Min, Yin, Wai-Fong, Chan, Kok-Gan, Schembri, Mark A., Mulvey, Matthew A. and Beatson, Scott A. (2019). Population dynamics of an Escherichia coli ST131 lineage during recurrent urinary tract infection. Nature Communications, 10 (1) 3643, 3643. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11571-5

  • Bartley, Paul B., Ben Zakour, Nouri L., Stanton-Cook, Mitchell, Muguli, Raghuram, Prado, Luis, Garnys, Vyt, Taylor, Katherine, Barnett, Timothy C., Pinna, Glen, Robson, Jennifer, Paterson, David L., Walker, Mark J., Schembri, Mark A. and Beatson, Scott A. (2015). Hospital-Wide Eradication of a Nosocomial Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 1 Outbreak. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 62 (3), 273-279. doi: 10.1093/cid/civ870

  • Alikhan, Nabil-Fareed, Petty, Nicola K., Ben Zakour, Nouri L. and Beatson, Scott A. (2011). BLAST Ring Image Generator (BRIG): Simple prokaryote genome comparisons. BMC Genomics, 12 (402) 402, 1-10. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-12-402

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Omaleki, Lida, Blyde, David, McKay, Philippa, Lobo, Edina T., Zhang, Ge, Harris, Louise M., Sinclair, Holly A., Bergh, Haakon, White, Rhys T., Forde, Brian M., Beatson, Scott A., Turni, Conny and Blackall, Patrick J. (2022). Lonepinella - the devil in the oral cavity (of the koala). One Health Downunder Symposium 2022, Brisbane, QLD Australia, 12-13 September 2022.

  • Rynhoud, H., Forde, B.M., Beatson, S.A., Abraham, S., Meler, E., Soares Magalhães, R.J. and Gibson, J.S. (2021). Molecular epidemiology of clinical and colonising methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus isolates in companion animals. . Australian Society for Microbiology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 31 May-3 June 2021.

  • Lee, Brendon, Almeida, Deepak, Afriat-Jurnou, Livnat, Aung, Htin, Forde, Brian, Harold, Liam, Hards, Kiel, Pidot, Sacha, Ahmed, Hafna, Mohamed, Elaaf, Taylor, Mathew, West, Nicholas, Stinear, Timothy, Greening, Chris, Beatson, Scott, Cook, Gregory, Nuermberger, Eric and Jackson, Colin (2020). Predicting nitroimidazole antibiotic resistance mutations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis with protein engineering. Annual Meeting on Experimental Biology, San Diego, CA, United States, 4-7 April 2020. Hoboken, NJ, United States: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1096/fasebj.2020.34.s1.04923

  • Cuddihy, Thom, Forde, Brian, Rhodes, Nicholas, Paterson, David, Gorse, Dominique, Beatson, Scott and Harris, Patrick (2019). SRA down under: cache and analysis platform for infectious disease. Australian national conference for Health Informatics (HIC 2019), Melbourne, Australia, 12-14 August 2019. Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. doi: 10.3233/SHTI190776

  • Omaleki, L., Turni, C., Beatson, S. and Blackall, P. J. (2017). Clouds and Pasteurella multocida. Microbiology in Moreton Bay, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island, Qld, Australia, 2 December 2017.

  • Omaleki, L., Turni, C., Beatson, S. and Blackall, P. J. (2017). Clouds and Pasteurella multocida – an updated forecast. Australasian Poultry Veterinary Alliance Meeting, Geelong, Victoria, 15 -17 November 2017.

  • Pal, Tibor , Sonnevend, Agnes Maria , Ghazawi, Akela , Haidermota, Aliashgher , Girgis, Safinaz , Alfaresi, Mubarak , Omar, Mohammed , Paterson, David L. , Beatson, Scott , Forde, Brian and Zowawi, Hosam M. (2016). Multi-hospital spread of a pan-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae clone with an ISEcp1-directed blaOXA-181 insertion into the mgrB gene in the AE. The 26th European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9-12 April 2016.

  • Sherrard, L., Tai, A., Wee, B., Ramsay, K., Kidd, T., Ben Zakour, N., Whiley, D., Beatson, S. and Bell, S. C. (2016). Within-host whole genome analysis of an antibiotic resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain sub-type in cystic fibrosis. Annual North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference, Orlando, FL, United States, 27-29 October 2016. Hoboken, NJ, United States: John Wiley & Sons.

  • Hanks-Thomson, Kirstin R., Kidd, Timothy J., Wainwright, Claire E., Ramsey, Kay A., Steen, Jason A., Bell, Scott C., Zakour, Nouri L. Ben and Beatson, Scott A. (2012). Acquired aminoglycoside resistance in pseudomonas aeruginosa from a cystic fibrosis patient. Australian Society for Microbiology Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM2012), Brisbane, Australia, 1-4 July 2012.

  • Kirstin R. Hanks-Thomson, Timothy J. Kidd, Jason A. Steen, Claire E. Wainwright, Keith Grimwood, Scott C. Bell, Nouri L. Ben Zakour, Barbara Rose, Jim Manos, Nicola K. Petty and Scott A. Beatson (2011). Genetic adaptation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the airways of two Australian cystic fibrosis patients. Pseudomonas 2011, Sydney, 4-9-2011 to 7-9-2011. Sydney: University of Technology - Sydney (UTS).

  • Garske, L., Bell, S. C., Beatson, S., Walsh, S., Mattick, J., Leach, A. and Whitchurch, C. (2003). Pseudomonas aeruginosa exposed to sub-inhibitory ceftazidime or tobramycin has reduced homoserine lactones. The Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand 2003 Annual Scientific Meeting, Adelaide, Australia, 4 - 9 April 2003. Carlton, VIC: Blackwell Science. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1843.2003.supp_1.x

  • Croft, L., Beatson, S. A., Whitchurch, C. B., Blakeley, R. L., Huang, B. and Mattick, J. S. (1999). One approach to developing a bacterial genome database. ComBio 99, Conrad Jupiters, Gold Coast, 27-30 September, 1999. Kent Town, SA: Aust. Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology.

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

Completed Supervision