Kayla Barnes – Sabeti Lab

KAYLA BARNES, Ph.D.

Kayla Barnes is a postdoctoral fellow in the Sabeti Lab where she focuses on evolutionary genetics of both humans and pathogen. Kayla is a co-leader on two genome-wide association studies of susceptibility to Ebola Virus Disease and Lassa fever. Kayla is also analyzing persistence of Ebola in semen and Lassa fever virus variation between the human and rodent hosts. In addition to her work on hemorrhagic fevers, Kayla recently began work to elucidate the intrahost genetic variation of the Zika virus and the human transcriptomic profile of pregnant women with Zika virus disease. Kayla’s postdoctoral work is supported by the ASTMH Shope fellowship and a Broad-Next 10 grant.

Kayla carried out her Ph.D. in Tropical Medicine at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Center in Blantyre, Malawi, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine with Janet Hemingway and Charles Wondji. Her work focused on the genomics and evolutionary genetics driving insecticide resistance mechanisms in a main malaria mosquito vector throughout southern Africa. Kayla showed a selective sweep around two important cytochrome P450s that metabolize insecticides occurred after the introduction of treated bed nets. Kayla was awarded the Jean Clayton Fellowship and the ASTMH Young Investigator Award for her Ph.D. work.

Kayla completed her undergraduate degree in Evolutionary Biology and Chemistry, with an emphasis in Molecular Biology at the University of Colorado. Kayla was an Undergraduate Research Opportunity (UROP) recipient and studied haptoglobin polymorphisms in endurance athletes under Jeffry Mitton. After her undergraduate degree Kayla worked with Heidi Rehm at the Harvard Medical School, Laboratory for Molecular Medicine developing personalized medicine tools. She then worked for Dyann Wirth at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she studied multiplicity of Plasmodium falciparum infection and helped analyze geographical variation and antimalarial drug resistance in P. falciparum isolates.

Kayla is a science advisor to the Boston Science Museum, Hall of Human Life, and the co-creator of the LSTM Science in Action Podcast.

Africa-wide selective sweep of pyrethroid genes correlates with scaling up of malaria control.

Plos Genetics 13 (2): e1006539
Barnes KG, Weedall G, Ndula M, Irving H, Mzilahowa T, Hemingway J, Wondji CS.

Restriction to gene flow is linked to changes in the molecular basis of pyrethroid resistance in the malaria vector Anopheles funestus.

PNAS. 2016, Nov 11; 114(2).
Barnes KG, Irving H, Chiumia M, Mzilahowa T, Coleman M, Hemingway J, Wondji CS.

Partners in crime: the highly polymorphic CYP6M7 cytochrome P450 gene combines with the directionally selected CYP6P9a and CYP6P9b genes to expand the pyrethroid resistance front in the malaria vector Anopheles funestus in Africa.

BMC Genomics 2014, 15:817.
Riveron JM, Ibrahim SS, Chanda E, Mzilahowa T, Cuamba N, Irving H, Barnes KG, Ndula M, Wondji CS.

Directionally selected cytochrome P450 alleles are driving the spread of pyrethroid resistance in the major malaria vector Anopheles funestus.

PNAS. 2013, Jan 2;110(1).
Riveron JM, Irving H, Ndula M, Barnes KG, Ibrahim SS, Paine MJI, Wondji CS.

Impact of pyrethroid resistance on operational malaria control in Malawi.

PNAS. 2012, Nov 20;109(47):19063-70
Wondji CS, Coleman M, Kleinschmidt I, Mzilahowa T, Irving H, Ndula M, Rehman A, Morgan J, Barnes KG, Hemingway J.

Hybrid selection for sequencing pathogen genomes from clinical samples.

Genome Biology. 2011, 12(8):R73.
Melnikov A, Galinsky K, Rogov P, Fennell T, Van Tyne D, Russ C, Daniels R, Barnes KG, Bochicchio J, Ndiaye D, Sene PD, Wirth DF, Nusbaum C, Volkman SK, Birren BW, Gnirke A, Neafsey DE.

Identification and functional validation of the novel antimalarial resistance locus PF10_0355 in Plasmodium falciparum.

PLoS Genetics. 2011, v7:4.
Van Tyne D, Park DJ, Schaffner SF, Neafsey DN, Angelino E, Cortese JF, Barnes KG, Rosen DM, Lukens AK, Daniels RF, Milner DA, Johnson CA, Shlyakhter I, Grossman SR, Becker JS, Yamins D, Karlsson EK, Ndiaye D, Sarr O, Mboup S, Happi C, Furlotte NA, Eskin E, Kang HM, Hartl DL, Birren BW, Wiegand RC, Lander ES, Wirth DF, Volkman SK, Sabeti PC.

KAYLA BARNES, Ph.D.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Plos Genetics 13 (2): e1006539 Barnes KG*, Weedall G*, Ndula M, Irving H, Mzilahowa T, Hemingway J, Wondji CS.

PNAS. 2016, Nov 11; 114(2). Barnes KG, Irving H, Chiumia M, Mzilahowa T, Coleman M, Hemingway J, Wondji CS.

BMC Genomics 2014, 15:817. Riveron JM*, Ibrahim SS*, Chanda E, Mzilahowa T, Cuamba N, Irving H, Barnes KG, Ndula M, Wondji CS.

PNAS. 2013, Jan 2;110(1). Riveron JM, Irving H, Ndula M, Barnes KG, Ibrahim SS, Paine MJI, Wondji CS.