Bioinformatics Seminar
Time:
Venue: Na
31 July 2018
NaGenomics in the control and elimination of malaria
Alyssa BarryWEHI Population Health and Immunity
Despite great successes in reducing the global malaria burden in the last two decades ; progress has now stalled. Novel tools are urgently needed to ensure countries can continue to progress towards their malaria control and elimination goals. Genomic surveillance in particular is providing critical data to improve and focus malaria interventions to the areas where they will make the greatest impact. We are using genomic profiling of malaria parasites and populations to inform malaria control efforts in the South West Pacific region. Most of our work to date has included microsatellite and SNP genotyping however we recently pioneered a novel method to deplete samples of contaminating human DNA thus making whole genome sequencing of large numbers of field isolates feasible. In addition ; we have developed sequencing protocols using the Oxford Nanopore MinION with a view to transferring this technology to the field. This seminar will include an overview of this research and our most recent MinION results.