“Paleomicrobiology and the Diseases of the past”
There are many components to studying infectious diseases in the past. The first is the recovery of the biological material. The second is the identification of disease within the remains of an individual. Archaeologists and Anthropologists play a critical role in this process. Molecular paleopathology and paleomicrobiology can then confirm the presence of these infections and allows us to open a window into the past to study paleoepidemiology, infectious disease evolution and many other biomedical related questions.

Dr Matheson is an Analytical Biochemist and Archaeologist who studied a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology, Classics and Ancient History), Bachelor of Science (Biochemistry and Chemistry), Post graduate diploma of Science (Biochemistry-Molecular Archaeology) and a PhD (Biochemistry) at the University of Queensland, Australia. His honours was conducted at the Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology, PhD at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (one of the top molecular biology facilities in Australia) both at the University of Queensland. His postdoc was at the Kuvin Centre for Tropical and Infectious Disease linked to the Hadassah Medical School at the Hebrew University and he has conducted research in other laboratories around the world and as an archaeologist has excavated at archaeological sites around the world. At Lakehead University he was involved with setting up the Paleo-DNA Laboratory a world class facility for the study of ancient and degraded DNA which is also accredited for forensic casework and his current research includes biomedical science, molecular archaeology, molecular paleopathology and forensic science.