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Simon Ereh
Infectious disease physician
Location Nigeria
Activity
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If I am using Mac OS, do I still need to install Linux, considering I could perform same tasks with Bash on my Mac?
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Yes, I have used the command line before as part of my private bioinformatics studies.
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Brief and apt introduction. My expectations for this course include polishing my bash scripting capability and having a well structured update on R programming. Most of my learning of these subjects have been informal.
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Hi.
I am an infectious disease clinician/ scientist ,based in Nigeria, with keen interest in viral genomics. Bioinformatics is a crucial tool for my research, hence my interest in this course. -
Simon Ereh made a comment
In relation to physical distancing, I have been observing the confinement imposed by the government of the county where I am resident.
This helps to slow transmission of the disease and prevents the health system from being overwhelmed by cases of the disease. -
Grading PHEIC would help in ensuring the right perspective and seriousness is given to each declared PHEIC. It would also help in guiding resource allocation.
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Prices ranged from $555 to $5,169 for Whole exome sequencing, $1,906 to $24,810 for Whole genome sequencing and about $1000 for clinical exome sequencing.
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Simon Ereh made a comment
I would design a gene panel for Nieman-pick lipidosis.
I would the panel restricted to the SMPD1, NPC1 and NPC2 genes. This is because these genes are sufficient to diagnose all known types of Nieman-picks disease, as well as to classify them. -
Simon Ereh made a comment
Following steps outlined in the task and course material (2.4), it is clear GATA2 is the causative gene responsible for Emberger syndrome.
To further confirm the aetiologic role of GATA2, I would do both in vitro and in vivo studies. These would include knock-out/ knock-in studies, using CRISPR-Cas9 for instance, where the phenotypic/functional effect of... -
Simon Ereh made a comment
I just began my internship involving lots of sequencing with NGS methods. This week's lessons have given me a deeper understanding of underlying concepts, which I thought I knew but have come to appreciate how shallow my knowledge was.
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I think NGS would be better called multiplex sequencing, as multiplexing seems to be the fundamental common attribute of all NGS technologies.
Calling it "next generation" leaves it hanging as a technology that is about to emerge despite it has already emerged and more technologies that would surpass it are already on the horizon. -
Simon Ereh made a comment
In Africa, we have "rain makers", who are believed to cause rain fall. However, these rain makers are never seen to cause it to rain in dry seasons and the reason for this is clear: they are more likely to fail in the dry season! Because it naturally rains during rainy seasons, the chances of a disappointment or failure to cause rainfall are slimmer while in...
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Simon Ereh made a comment
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Simon Ereh made a comment
I am particularly concerned about availability and sustainability of these technologies in the developing world. To begin with, in countries where capacity to diagnose Malaria, tuberculosis and pneumonias are still non-existent in many areas, procuring expensive equipments for sequencing obviously is not and should not be a priority, as scarce resources should...
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Similarities between Sanger are NGS are:
1. Both methods use specific identifiers to recognise bases in fragments e.g fluorescent bases, pyrophosphate reaction products or pH changes. For instance, both the Sanger and Illumina sequencing by synthesis utilise fluorescent bases to identify the bases at each position of the DNA fragment to be sequenced.
2. Both... -
Simon Ereh made a comment
I have access to both Sanger sequencing and Illumina MiSeq seqencer, which employs sequencing by synthesis technology. Which of them I prefer depends on what I desire to achieve and the volume of samples to be analysed. For analysis of few samples and relatively longer reads, I would prefer Sanger sequencing because it is more cost effective in this scenario...
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Genetic diseases like Sickle cell disease, Huntington's disease, Cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, cancers etc. are amenable to medical treatment to varying degrees, most without an outright cure. Interestingly, with improvements in genomics, these could potentially be cured by gene therapy.
A famous example where genetic diagnosis helped someone receive... -
Simon Ereh made a comment
The accuracy of genomics brings with it prospects for man's good as well as well as concerns for privacy and ethical violations.
Its accuracy means that diseases can now be diagnosed with pin-point accuracy, patients' treatments can now be individualised based on genetic markers and diseases that were hitherto incurable now hold promise for cure, thanks to... -
Simon Ereh replied to GEOFFREY WARUI
Sensitivity and specificity actually depends on several factors like expertise of the team, "quality" of primers designed for amplification of segments of interest, among many others. However, in good hands and with current technology, NGS has a very high level of sensitivity and specificity that gives it almost pin-point accuracy
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Aptly stated. I remember the role the military also played in ensuring safety of health workers as they administered the OPV to children in the north east
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The role of the military in response to outbreaks can not be over-emphasised, especially in areas with security challenges. No meaningful work can be done in such areas unless security of lives and supplies are maintained, hence the need for involvement of the military in these areas.
Furthermore, militaries often have specialists whose roles remain crucial... -
Simon Ereh made a comment
All the specialists mentioned are needed in prevention and control of most infectious disease outbreaks. I would be difficult to to find outbreaks where these specialists don't have a role to play.
However, I believe we also need geospatial scientists and other IT personnel for mapping outbreak burdens, efforts at control, spread, success in control and other... -
So true Emmanuel. I also think we need to go beyond health workers to policy makers and politicians, many of whom are not workers. In the end, outbreak preparedness will be limited by the financial resources devoted to them. Sadly, many of these "money brokers" know nothing about what it takes to prepare for epidemics, hence the reason why we need to...
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Outbreak preparedness should be given top priority by ministries of health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Superficially, it may seem infectious disease outbreaks pale out of significance when compared with endemic counterparts. However, one must realise that outbreak preparedness also encompasses preparedness for the handling of endemic diseases...
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Hi.
I am Simon, a senior registrar in Infectious Diseases from Nigeria and a master's student for MSc in Infectious Diseases and One Health. It's great meeting everyone here, albeit late. I hope to engage robustly with other participants within the short time left for the course and even beyond. Equipping myself to pursue my passion of contributing my quota... -
Simon Ereh made a comment
This is a bar chart depicting the number of college students in The UK in three academic sessions, indicating their gender and credit-hour class of education.
Part time students consistently outnumbered the full time students by far in all the years, across both sexes. Though the men in part time education initially outnumbered their female counterparts, the... -
Simon Ereh made a comment
Well, I've got no idea about the IELTS test. I'm preparing from the scratch (IELTS-wise)
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Simon Ereh made a comment
Hi! I'm from Nigeria, preparing for the IELTS test to meet the requirements for the Chevening scholarship. My dream university course is the Control of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I also have my sight at the Mphil Public Health of Cambridge University.
