Edward C. Holmes

Education Holmes was educated at University College London where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Anthropology in 1986. influenza, HIV and dengue, and enabled more accurate assessments of what types of virus are most likely to emerge in human populations and whether they will evolve human-to-human transmission. part of the Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution edited by Paul H. Harvey and Robert M. May. He also co-authored the textbook Molecular Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach with Rod Page. Since 1994 he has supervised 31 graduate students. and the early descriptions of the disease, working with Zhang Yongzhen from Fudan University to share the first sequencing data from the virus. Holmes has figured prominently in commentary surrounding its origins. In March 2020, he co-authored a letter titled The proximal origins of SARS-CoV-2, published in Nature Medicine, which examined the mutations in the receptor-binding domain and furin cleavage site, and concluded that the virus sequence did not appear to be engineered. He co-authored a more-detailed review article in Cell.

The University of Sydney published a statement by Holmes in April that stated, "There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China", and that all evidence points towards its origin in an animal species. These views were reported in the Financial Times in May 2020.

Institutional affiliations

Before moving to Sydney in 2012, Holmes held academic appointments at various universities in the UK and USA including:

Awards and honours

Holmes was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) in 2015 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2017. In 2017 he was awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship. He was awarded the Scientific Medal, Zoological Society of London in 2003. In January 2021 he was jointly awarded the General Symbiont prize as an exemplar in the practice of data sharing at the Research Symbiont Awards alongside Zhang Yongzhen for sharing the first SARSCov2 genome. In November 2021 he was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Science. He was the recipient of the 2024 Croonian Medal and Lecture, awarded by the Royal Society.

Personal life Holmes lists his recreations as Whale Beach, New South Wales, electric guitars, and Aston Villa Football Club.