Cormac Kinsella was a MSc student in the Sabeti lab from 2016 to 2017. He worked with Dr. Anne Piantadosi on arboviral epidemiology, specifically the Jamestown Canyon virus in Massachusetts. Together, they branched out to virus discovery.
He is now a Ph.D. candidate at the Amsterdam UMC Medical Microbiology department, in the lab of Dr. Lia van der Hoek. His research focus is on virus discovery in clinical and veterinary samples, more specifically on an understudied group known as the CRESS viruses. He recently discovered three novel CRESS families in human stool samples and showed that they infect the human parasite genera Entamoeba and Giardia.
Cormac sees his key accomplishments during his time in the Sabeti lab as discovering a passion for finding new viruses and overcoming his couch potato status to complete a marathon.
“The Sabeti lab is friendly and motivational in equal measure.”