Happi Explores Using Genomic Surveillance for Containing Disease
Dr. Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases and professor of molecular biology and genomics at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, will deliver a lecture on using genomic surveillance and characterizing microbial threats to detect and contain disease outbreaks in West Africa. The talk, part of the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS), will take place in Lipsett Amphitheatre on Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. ET.
Recent viral outbreaks around the world are an important reminder of the difficulties of predicting when and where the next outbreak will occur. These also highlight the need to greatly expand our ability to rapidly identify and stop these threats.
Infectious diseases are often characterized by fever and are among the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in tropical developing countries. Researchers in Nigeria are translating microbial genomics knowledge and technologies into new diagnostic tools that can rapidly test for a wide array of known and novel microbes simultaneously. These tools are helping local health workers diagnose and treat patients by the their bedsides and prevent outbreaks from escalating.
These new developments lay the groundwork to pursue key scientific questions about the pathophysiology, epidemiology, transmission, evolution and biology of the microbes causing disease.
To view this lecture on videocast, see: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=55008.