David Rasmussen
DR
Bio
David Rasmussen is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Entomology and Plant Pathology. He obtained his PhD in Biology from Duke University and then did a postdoc at ETH Zurich. Since 2018, he has led the Phylodynamics Research Group at NC State, which develops computational methods for genomic epidemiology and viral evolution. Recent work in the group has focused on expanding phylogenetic methods to consider recombination and non-neutral (adaptive) evolutionary processes. His group also uses plant-infecting RNA viruses to explore how pathogens adapt to novel hosts and overcome fitness trade-offs between hosts to expand their host range.
Area(s) of Expertise
David leads the Phylodynamics Research Group at NC State which develops new phylogenetic and computational methods for genomic epidemiology. Recent work by the group has centered around quantifying the fitness of viral pathogens in terms of their transmission potential between hosts using genomic sequence data. David's group also studies how plant viruses such as Tomato spotted wilt virus adapt to novel hosts and expand their host range by resolving fitness tradeoffs between hosts.
Publications
- Experimental Evolution of Phytophthora infestans on Tomato Reveals Rapid Genotypic and Phenotypic Adaptation and Dynamic RXLR Genome Variation , Phytopathology® (2025)
- Optimizing genomic sampling for demographic and epidemiological inference with Markov decision processes , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2025)
- Optimizing genomic sampling for demographic and epidemiological inference with Markov decision processes , Genetics (2025)
- Phylodynamics beyond neutrality: the impact of incomplete purifying selection on viral phylogenies and inference , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (2025)
- Disease Progress and Detection of a California Resistance-Breaking Strain of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus in Tomato with LAMP and CRISPR-Cas12a Assays , PhytoFrontiers™ (2024)
- Exploring the Accuracy and Limits of Algorithms for Localizing Recombination Breakpoints , Molecular Biology and Evolution (2024)
- Phylodynamics beyond neutrality: The impact of incomplete purifying selection on viral phylogenies and inference , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2024)
- Quantifying the genomic determinants of fitness inE. coliST131 using phylodynamics , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2024)
- Quantifying the strength of viral fitness trade-offs between hosts: a meta-analysis of pleiotropic fitness effects , Evolution Letters (2024)
- Diversity and Pathobiology of an Ilarvirus Unexpectedly Detected in Diverse Plants and Global Sequencing Data , Phytopathology (2023)