Skip to 0 minutes and 9 seconds Bacteria have caused some of the most devastating diseases in human history, such as cholera, tuberculosis, and the plague. But thanks to scientific advancements, such as epidemiological investigation and antibiotics, we have powerful tools to tackle them. However, these outbreaks still continue and antimicrobial resistance is becoming a global threat to human health. Genomics is a new weapon we have in our battle against these microbial diseases. I’m Dr. Adam Reid, a Staff Scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute near Cambridge in England. Here at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, we use genome sequences to better understand human and pathogen biology to improve human health. I’m Dr. Josie Bryant a Wellcome Fellow based at the University of Cambridge working on pathogen genomics.
Skip to 0 minutes and 51 seconds In this course, we will be learning about the bacteria which cause diseases, what the genomes look like, and how they evolve to become pathogens. We will also be exploring the key developments and sequencing technologies which have led to the genomics revolution, and how we use computers to analyse all this information-rich data that these technologies produce. This course is for people interested in stories they read in the media about antimicrobial resistance, disease outbreaks and genome science. But it’s also for trained biologists, health care professionals, genome and data scientists who are interested in these topics. Genomics is the study of genomes, the DNA which contains instructions to build all living things.
Skip to 1 minute and 31 seconds Advancements in technology have made it possible to read these instructions faster, cheaper, and easier than ever before. Bacterial genomes contain information about how they cause disease and how they resist antibiotics. They can also tell us about how diseases spread during outbreaks. We will explore the history of disease outbreak investigation and how genomics has revolutionised our understanding of outbreaks such as MRSA and food poisoning. We hope you will join us for this fascinating introduction into how genomics can be used to fight bacterial pathogens.
