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Genomic methods for tracking bacterial pathogens for clinical and public health benefit: case studies

Part 2 of 2
Published on October 31, 2022   21 min

A selection of talks on Infectious Diseases

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0:00
Hi, I am Dr. Charlene Rodriguez and I am a practicing pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases. I work in St. Mary's Hospital in London. I'm also an academic specializing in microbial genomics, and I work at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford. In the second part of the talk, I will walk you through four case studies describing bacteria that cause human disease and how genomic methods can be used to track these pathogens and prevent further disease spreading.
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The first bacteria we will consider is Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
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Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes the disease tuberculosis manifesting most commonly as pulmonary infection. But TB can also occur as extra pulmonary disease causing infections in many organ systems, including the lymph nodes, bone or the brain, presenting as meningitis. TB is a global problem, causing over 1 million deaths per year in people of all ages. Once exposed to the bacteria, your immune system can either contain the infecting organism by mounting an effective immune response, or the infection can progress to cause invasive disease. TB disease is problematic because it requires the prolonged course of antibiotics, which are given in combination to avoid the development of resistance. Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria are transmitted by airborne spread. Once a case of TB is identified, contact tracing must be performed to identify other people who may have been exposed to the index case. This process often identifies many more people who've been exposed and infected, who need latent TB treatment, and some who need treatment for active TB disease.

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Genomic methods for tracking bacterial pathogens for clinical and public health benefit: case studies

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