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]
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!

Sam was invited by the postgrad/postdoc Union to give a seminar and mentoring. Excellent trip, friendly and talented people. Looking forward to returning.

Sheppard Lab joined over 9,000 at the recent ASM microbe meeting in San Francisco. Ben and Sion gave oral presentations and Evangelos presented his award-winning flash poster presentation.

Top: Ben’s talk on global differences in Campylobacter populations; Middle-left: Evangelos’ poster on cattle-adaptation in C. jejuni. Bottom-left: View of the golden gate bridge! Bottom-right: Sion’s talk on niche-associated genes.

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We’ve had a couple of visitors this month:

Dr Santiago Castillo Ramírez is an Associate Professor in the Evolutionary Genomics Research Program at the Center for Genomic Sciences in Mexico and spent a few days with us discussing global population dynamics in Actinobacteria baumanii.

In addition, we’ve been pleased to welcome Guillermo Salvatierra Rodríguez who is visiting as part of his PhD studies with Pablo Tsukayama at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) in Peru. We’re very happy to help Guillermo characterize his Campylobacter genomes and investigate potential sources of infection in Peru.

¡Buena suerte amigos!

From left: Sam, Sion, Guillermo, Evangelos and Ben.