Lahiru Thomas is a BBSRC DTP PhD researcher based at the University of Nottingham, having completed his Master’s degrees in Bioinformatics and Cancer and Molecular and Cellular Biology at Queen Mary University of London in September 2021. He also studied preclinical medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed his Biomedical Sciences degree in London.

Lahiru Thomas uses a variety of existing and novel approaches to understand the dependencies of genes on one another in pangenomes. The focus of his research and PhD project is to elucidate prokaryotic mechanisms of molecular evolution in the context of the pangenome, particularly in Neisseria and other bacterial species.