I
recently had the opportunity to travel to the U.K. to attend and present a poster at the
Applied Bioinformatics and Public Health Microbiology Conference at the Wellcome Genome Campus, just outside of Cambridge. Although small, the conference highlighted research at the forefront of genomic epidemiology and provided insight into the future of public health microbiology.
I present the same poster from the NAR Union on our Tuberculosis WGS Report Design Study (see presentations). This was a great opportunity to get in person feedback on our findings, particularly as we are still working on the manuscript.
However, the highlights of the conference were the presentations and panel discussions. Perhaps my favourite presentation involved nextstrain.org, a web platform for visualizing the genomic epidemiology of epidemics. Not only is the website gorgeous, it presents incredibly rich information to visualize (semi) real-time evolution and
transmission within large scale epidemics. For example, the platform allows the user to visualize the evolution of the zika epidemic, from the South Pacific, to Brazil and beyond.
In addition to the conference, I had a great time exploring London. I particular, I made the pilgrimage to the former location of the Broad Street pump (as well as the adjacent and aptly named John Snow pub). While the pump is no longer there, a pink curbstone marks the location.