Associate Professor Michael McDonald leads the Microbial Experimental Evolution laboratory in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University and has established himself as a national leader for research at the interface of evolution, genomics, and microbiology.

Dr McDonald’s research group in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University has the rare attribute of working with diverse microbial organisms: classic model organisms (E. coli, baker’s yeast, and the yeast C. albicans) as well as new model systems he has developed for experimental evolution – H. pylori, A. baumannii and A. baylyi (horizontal gene transfer and recombination), L. plantarum and C. albicans (experimental co-evolution) and bacteriophage. This versatility is important for the research aim of MACSYS: to construct whole-cell models for diverse prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Dr McDonald and his research group will lead MACSYS efforts to use whole-cell models to predict the outcomes of evolution.