Speaker: Dr Matthew Gilmour, Scientific Director General, Public Health Agency of Canada, will present a seminar entitled: Implementation of genomics into foodborne outbreak investigations in Canada

Host: Alison Mather

Abstract:
Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory is renowned for its research on viral hemorrhagic fevers and for inventing the Ebola vaccine. The NML was also a pioneer for the research and then implementation of genomics into foodborne disease outbreaks. In retrospect, these activities were not mutually exclusive. I will discuss how the NML built a genomics program that was supported by IT systems that prioritized science outcomes over corporate processes.

Then through collaboration with foodborne disease epidemiologists, our scientists researched and developed IT applications, such as SISTR for Salmonella serovar prediction by ‘genoserotyping’, that allowed bacterial genomes to become an interpretable finding for surveillance and outbreak investigations.

Canadian public health laboratories are now in the process of systematically replacing a multitude of historical testing approaches on enteric diseases in favour of a genomics approach.

All staff from organisations on the Norwich Research Park are welcome to attend.