Poster Presentation Australian Society for Microbiology Annual Scientific Meeting 2017

Next Generation Sequencing for clinical diagnostic and public health microbiology. (#207)

Joanne Barfield 1 , John Ferguson 1 2 , Cliff Meldrum 3 , Rod Givney 4 , Chris Ashurst Smith 2 4 , Caroline Blackwell 2 5 , Sharron Hall 2 6 , Kelvin Kong 2 7 , Phil Hansbro 2 6 , Rodney Scott 2 6 8
  1. Department of Microbiology Pathology North, School of Biomedical Science and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW
  2. Hunter Medical Research Institute, Newcastle, NSW
  3. NSW Health, Pathology Genomics, NSW, Australia
  4. Department of Microbiology, Pathology North, Newcastle
  5. School of Biomedical Science and Pharmacy, Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle
  6. University of Newcastle, School of Biomedical Science and Pharmacy, Newcastle, NSW
  7. School of Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW
  8. Department of Molecular Medicine Pathology North, Newcastle

This year, it has been more than two decades since the first complete bacterial genome, H.influenzae was sequenced and published.1 Since 1995, the field of microbial genomics has been moving forward at an astonishing rate. The current generation of sequencing technology, commonly known as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) is no longer just a sophisticated research tool for specialised laboratories. NGS has and will continue to open up a whole new world for clinical diagnostic microbiology. Microbiologists now have access to performing whole genome sequencing (WGS) on a wide range of pathogenic microbes (bacterial, viral, fungal or parasite) and researchers are all enthusiastically working to gain insight into the genomic world of microbes. Clinical microbiologists working in diagnostic pathology laboratories are also keen to explore the world of NGS and the plethora of knowledge that this technology can provide.  We are interested to explore the use of new genomic technologies as an alternative to or alongside current technology in the diagnostic laboratory, which has limited detection or identification capabilities for some clinical isolates. Our local experience of NGS for clinical diagnostic and public health microbiology will be described, along with a summary of methods developed so far.

 

 

  1. Fleischmann RD, Adams MD, White O, et al. Whole-genome random sequencing and assembly of Haemophilus influenzae Rd. Science 1995;269: 496–512.