30 Nov 2017
Introductory Course in Applied Public Health Microbial Genomics
The ‘Introductory Course in Applied Public Health Microbial Genomics’ was held at the Doherty Institute from the 20th to 24th of November 2017. Staff from Doherty Applied Microbial Genomics (DAMG), The Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory (MDU PHL) and Melbourne Bioinformatics organised and hosted the course.
The aim of the course was to provide an introduction to genomics based strategies and analysis methods that are now commonly used in the characterisation and comparison of bacterial isolates in several Australian Public Health Microbiology Laboratories. A key aspect of the course is that participants get ‘hands on’ experience with some fundamental analysis methods now used in the genomics-based analysis of bacterial isolates, these include de novo assembly of Illumina read sets from bacterial isolates, the detection of virulence and antibiotic resistance genes and the comparison of the genome sequences of isolates.
The course was extremely well received, with many course attendees indicating that the course materials were interesting and relevant, and the practical skills will be useful in their work. Several attendees expressed interest in attending a future ‘Advanced Course in Applied Public Health Microbial Genomics’ . We expect to run the Introductory Course in Applied Public Health Microbial Genomics again in late 2018.