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SCIENCE & YOU 2021
Event
Dessy Veltcheva is presenting at the 2021 Science & You conference which runs from 16 - 19 November 2021. Organised by the Universite e Lorraine.
The title of Dessy's talk is Birds of a feather flocking together: a transdisciplinary network initiative to break science boundaries in the chicken world.
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PubMLST Forum event (MRF)
Ten years on – the meningitis research foundation meningococcal genome library
To mark this anniversary, the Maiden Lab organised a hybrid meeting on 17 September 2021, online and with a small but distinguished group of researchers in the Oxford Martin School.
The event was held on Friday 17 September 2021, moderated by Martin CJ Maiden, and can be accessed and viewed on the PubMLST Youtube channel here
--- Or watch directly further down in the embedded video on this page.
Abstract: The Gram-negative diplococcus Neisseria meningitidis, the meningococcus, remains a globally important causative agent of meningitis and septicaemia (severe sepsis). Ten Years ago, the Meningitis Research Foundation funded the establishment of the UK ‘Meningitis Research Foundation Meningococcus Genome Library’ (MRF-MGL), with a multi-centre award to Public Health England, the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Embedded withing the PubMLST.org platform MRF-MGL) stores provenance, demographic, epidemiological, and whole genome sequence information for more than 5,000 meningococci isolated from patients in the UK over the past 10 years. Over this time, sequence-based molecular typing has become an essential component of invasive meningococcal disease surveillance world-wide and standardised typing methods and schemes have allowed comparability across reference and research laboratories in different countries. Shortly after its inception, the MRF-MGL contributed to the introduction of the ACYW meningococcal vaccines into the UK and it remains an essential resource, nationally and internationally.
For access to the data base, please see the PubMLST MRF library landing page here; The Meningitis Research Foundation website describing the library can be found here.
Speakers:
Chris Tang, Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford
Linda Glennie, Meningitis Research Foundation
Jay Lucidarme, Public Health England
Holly Bratcher & Keith Jolley & Charlene Rodrigues, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
Andrew Smith, University of Glasgow
Claire Cameron, Public Health Scotland
Chris Bayliss, University of Leicester
Muhamad-Kheir Taha, WHO, France
David Stephens, Emory University
Marko Spinsanti & Isabel Delany, GSK, Italy
Jamie Findlow, Pfizer, UK
Neisseria meningitidis
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Dr Mary Meehan
Mary completed an undergraduate degree and Ph.D. in Microbiology from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She then stayed on as a senior postdoctoral fellow analysing the structure/function relationships and protective potentials of major ligand-binding proteins of Gram-positive bacteria. Most of the research was focused on a major protective fibrinogen-binding protein of Streptococcus equi, the causative agent of strangles in horses. In 2006, Mary moved to the Irish Meningitis and Sepsis Reference Laboratory (IMSRL) located at Children’s Health Ireland at Temple Street, Dublin where she has continued her interest in Streptococci. Mary set up and currently runs the Irish typing service for invasive isolates of Streptococcus agalactiae and Streptococcus pyogenes using genotyping/serotyping and, emm typing methods, respectively. These data are submitted to the Health Protective Surveillance Centre to inform on national surveillance. In addition to the national typing service, the rest of Mary's time is focused on research with interests in the distribution of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and virulence factors among invasive and non-invasive isolates and their association with particular lineages. Recently, this research has moved from PCR-based analysis to high-resolution whole genome sequence analysis with a view to enhancing surveillance and understanding of the population biology of these two important human pathogens.
Senior Researcher
Children's University Hospital
Temple Street
Irish Meningitis and Sepsis Reference Laboratory
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Senior Researcher
Dr Desiree Bennett
Desiree is an expert on meningeal bacterial pathogens. She advised and reviewed Haemophilus influenzae webpages.
Epidemiology, Research & Development Section
Irish Meningitis & sepsis Reference Laboratory
Department of Paediatric Laboratory Medicine
Children's Health Ireland at Temple Street
Senior Molecular Biologist
Campy UK goes global
DPhil student Dessy Veltcheva will be presenting a talk at the CAMPY UK Goes Global conference on 9 September 2021. Title of talk: Longitudinal analysis of Campylobacter jejuni fluoroquinolone resistance amongst UK human disease isolates in the Pathogenicity, immunology, virulence factors and AMR session.
The virtual conference is jointly hosted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Bath, Hartpury University, and the Quadram Institute.
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2021 STI & HIV WORLD CONGRESS Talk
STI & HIV WORLD CONGRESS 2021 Talk: Typing outer membrane vesicle proteins of Neisseria gonorrhoeae provides insight into antimicrobial resistance.
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Anastasia Unitt will be presenting her work on Neisseria gonorrhoeae and OMVs at the STI and HIV World Congress (14th-17th July), and will also be participating in a live talk show on the topic of antibiotic resistance during the congress.
Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are small structures that bleb off the outer membrane of many Gram negative bacteria, including the gonococcus. In the talk a computational study of the diversity of gonococcal OMV proteins and their association with AMR will be discussed, providing fresh insight into the role of these vesicles. This research was undertaken through the formation of a gonococcal OMV peptide typing scheme within the Neisseria sp. section of the PubMLST database.
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Eveliina Hanski co-author on mSystems paper
A study published in mSystems builds foundation to host-microbe studies in the field of oral microbiology. Joseph et al constructed a curated murine oral microbiome database, with samples from laboratory and wild mice. Unlike the gut microbiome, the murine oral microbiome appears low in diversity is predominantly culturable. Three major murine-specific oral bacterial lineages were identified: Streptococcus danieliae, Lactobacillus murinus and Gemella species 2.
The wild house mice of Skokholm Island were included in the study. Data collected by Eveliina Hanski (PI: Dr Sarah Knowles).
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