Sam, Ben and Evangelos have returned from a successful visit to The Gambia. They spent three days in Basse field station where they had the 1st hybrid kick-off meeting for the GETcampy-Africa project. They visited various field sites and met with friends and collaborators from the MRC Units in Basse and Banjul! The meeting was hosted by Dr. Jahangir Hossain (LSHTM, The Gambia) and Dr. Pa Cheboh Saine (Head of Basse field station) at Basse, and by Prof Martin Antonio and Jarra Manneh at Banjul. Dr Akosua Karikari and Dr Courage Sabo (University of Development studies, Ghana) as well as Dr Isidore Bonkoungou (University of Joseph KI-ZERBO, Burkina Faso) along with Dr Kaisa Hauka (University of Helsinki, Finland) also joined the meeting via zoom. Very promising outcomes and lots of good projects ahead! Many thanks to everyone involved in organizing this exciting meeting!

During their stay in Basse, they visited the hospital, medical centres, veterinary livestock clinic and different communities and engaged with the local people. During their stay in Banjul, they visited the MRC Unit and went on a tour in the different labs in the brand new building! Sam and Ben went fishing (and came back empty-handed!), Evangelos held a snake for the first time, and they all went for a 26km bike ride terrorizing the streets of Banjul!

Last week our lab appeared on Channel 4 news to discussion the impact of the intensification of livestock production on the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistant zoonotic pathogens. Full link:

https://www.channel4.com/news/activists-call-for-judicial-review-of-intensive-farming-to-combat-another-pandemic

Biel is visiting our lab from Barcelona University to carry out bioinformatics projects to understand the genomics of pathogen emergence in livestock.

A few years in the making, but we’re finally pleased to see our paper on the emergence of virulence in avian Ecoli (APEC) published in Nature Communications.

University press release [link]

Referenced in Guardian article on Chicken disease [link]
Twitter thread [link]

Sam Sheppard from the University of Bath presents at the ARTICnetwork & CLIMB-BIG-DATA workshop on COVID-19 data analysis, motivating why we should use genomics in an epidemic. He gives background on typing schemes, different ways of sequencing and challenges such as how you can analyse large mounts of genomic data.
Micro binfie podcast [link]

CLIMB-NG Workshop: www.climb.ac.uk/artic-and-climb-b…a-joint-workshop/

The group’s latest paper investigating the emergence of cattle specialist strains of Campylobacter jejuni associated with intensive animal agriculture was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [Abstract below]

We are glad to welcome Jaspreet Mahindroo to the lab, who is visiting as part of her PhD studies with Dr. Neelam Taneja at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh in India. We’re very happy to help Jaspreet characterize her Campylobacter genomes and investigate potential sources of infection in India.

From left to right: Ben, Grant, Jess, Sam, Jaspreet & Evangelos.

Darwin Day Lecture, Wednesday February 19th, 2020
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution 16-18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN

Dr. Kat Arney – Everything You Know About Genetics Is Wrong.
Many of us learn about genetics in school starting with Mendel and his pea plants. We learn that one gene is linked to one trait, and one gene fault causes one disease. But the recent revolution in DNA sequencing is revealing that it’s much more complicated. People are not peas – and even peas are not peas! Dr Kat Arney, author of Herding Hemingways Cats: understanding how our genes work and How to Code a Human, explains how much we really know about how our genetic blueprints dictate our characteristics and health.

Ben, Jess and Evangelos attended the bi-annual Campylobacter, Helicobacter and Related Organisms (CHRO) conference in Belfast. It was good to meet up with old friends, present our work (poster, talks and sessions) and help the Campylobacter football team defend their trophy against Helicobacter!