MRSA transmission tracking: time to remove the blindfold?
| Date: | 27 September 2011 12:30-13:30 |
|---|---|
| Category: | Guest Lecturers |
| Speaker: | Professor Sharon Peacock |
| Speaker affiliation: | University of Cambridge |
| Room: | Wolfson Seminar Room 2 |
| Building: | Wolfson Education Centre |
| Site: | Hamemrsmith Campus |
| Contact: | Susan Farrell |
| Email: | id@imperial.ac.uk |
Abstract
The current methodologies used to type pathogens associated with transmission and outbreaks lack the resolution and turn-around time necessary to direct control measures in real time. The rapidly improving massively parallel sequencing (MPS) technologies provide the prospect of real-time whole genome sequencing of pathogens, and provide the ultimate resolution for infection control. In this talk, I will highlight the challenges to its implementation into routine clinical practice, illustrating this with results of several studies in which whole genome sequencing has been applied to MRSA.
Biography
Professor Peacock is a clinical microbiologist based within the Departments of Medicine and Pathology, University of Cambridge, and works closely with the Health Protection Agency and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. She is particularly interested in translation of sequence-based technologies into diagnostic and public health microbiology. She is funded by a UKCRC Translational Infection Research Initiative grant to develop tools for transmission tracking and outbreak investigation of MRSA. Having lived and worked in SE Asia for 7 years prior to moving to Cambridge, she also has a diverse range of interests relating to tropical bacterial pathogens. Professor Peacock chairs the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Initiative is co-director of the Infection and Immunity Theme, Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre; is a member of the Medical Research Council Infection and Immunity Board and is a member of the Medical Technologies Advisory Committee, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellent (NICE).
