Associate Professor
Dr Josh Ramsay
Dr Ramsay has wide-ranging interests in bacterial gene regulation and evolution.
An overarching theme to his research is the evolution of bacteria through horizontal gene transfer and the biology of the mobile genetic elements that facilitate horizontal gene transfer.
Dr Ramsay carried out his PhD in 2004-2008 at the University of Otago with Prof. Clive Ronson. He was then a University of Cambridge Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow from 2008-2011 and a Health Sciences Career Development Fellow at the University of Otago until 2013. Dr Ramsay's investigations explore the impacts of mobile genetic elements in both health related and agricultural contexts. In 2018 Dr Ramsay was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship and he is currently an Associate Professor at Curtin University in the Curtin Medical School and Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute.
EDUCATION
2004-2008
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
PhD, Genetics, Regulation of Excision and Transfer of the Mesorhizobium loti R7A Symbiosis Island
2000-2004
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
BSc(Hons), First Class, Genetics.
FUNDING
Recent Grants & Fellowships
2017 NHMRC Project Grant "Redefining antibiotic resistance plasmid transfer in Staphylococcus aureus" APP1145697. ($735,585) CIA Neville Firth (UoS), CIB Joshua Ramsay (Curtin) and CIC Charles Bond (UWA).
​
2017 ARC Future Fellowship "Harnessing horizontal gene transfer for sustainable nitrogen fixation" ($780,000) Dr Joshua Ramsay
2017 Royal Society of New Zealand, Marsden Fund. "Silencing unwanted expression in molecular circuits using naturally evolved solutions" ($750,000 NZD) Associate Investigator.
2017 ARC Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities "From powders to proteins: Improving diffraction science in Western Australia" ($700,000) Chief Investigator (#11)
APPOINTMENTS
2024-Present
Associate Professor
Curtin Medical School and Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute
2018-2023
Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow
School of Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences and Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Australia
2018-Present
Adjunct Senior Lecturer
School of Molecular Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia
2013-2017
Lecturer in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Australia
2015-2017
Adjunct Lecturer
School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Western Australia, Australia
2011-2013
Health Sciences Division Career Development Fellow
Prof. Clive W. Ronson's Group, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Otago, New Zealand.
2008-2011
Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow
Prof. George P. C. Salmond's Group, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK.