Our latest paper in the BMJ Global Health focuses on "Improving emergency preparedness and response in the Asia-Pacific" in relation to infectious diseases.

The paper is a joint commentary from CREID & Marie Bashir Institute of Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity (MBI) investigators along with representatives of the DFAT Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, WHO South-East Asia Regional Office, WHO Pacific Health Security and the Australian Government Office of Health Protection.

The BMJ Global Health commentary is based on outcomes of the CREID Workshop held in Sydney in May 2018. Please take a read by clicking on the links.

Congratulations to the two teams of early-mid career researchers who have been awarded start-up grants for collaborative research projects in infectious diseases and related disciplines The one-year grants are designed to promote development of early-mid career researcher networks and foster collaboration between research groups within CREID.

The funded projects are:

Genomics guided surveillance of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine failure in Australian children

Senior Investigators:

Rebecca Rocket (Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology – Public Health, Sydney)

Christopher Blyth (University of Western Australia, Perth)

Irani Rathnayake (Queensland Department of Health)

“Meta-transcriptomic” sequencing to enhance pathogen genomics

Senior Investigators:

John-Sebastian Eden (University of Sydney)

Jason Kwong (University of Melbourne)

Verlaine Timms (Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology – Public Health, Sydney)

Philip Britton (Westmead Children's Hospital)

Congratulations to all CREID investigators who received funding from the 2017 NHMRC Grant Application Round:

Partnerships

Professor Ben Howden (University of Melbourne) has received a Partnership Project for Better Health award to investigate "An evidence based framework for establishing public health microbial genomics in Australia"

Project Grants

Professor Jon Iredell (University of Sydney) has been awarded a Project Grant to investigate "Plasmid specialisation modules, microbial husbandry and microbiome resilience". Professor Edward Holmes (University of Sydney) was also awarded a Project Grant for "Using metagenomics to determine the causative agent(s) of tick-borne disease in Australia"

Fellowships

CREID early career researchers Dr Jason Kwong (University of Melbourne) and Dr Philip Britton (University of Sydney) have both been awarded NHMRC Early Career Fellowships. Dr Kwong's fellowship is entitled "The MetaFIND (Metagenomics For INfectious Diseases) project: developing clinical metagenomics to improve the healthcare of patients with infections" Dr Britton's fellowship will focus on "Emerging infectious neurological diseases in Australia; from enhanced recognition to improved response". CREID AI Professor Ben Marais (University of Sydney) has received a Practitioner Fellowship for research aimed at "Limiting tuberculosis transmission and improving the care of affected children".

Centre of Research Excellence

Congratulations also to CREID investigators Professor Enrico Coiera (Macquarie University) and Professor Vitali Sintchenko (University of Sydney) for being part of the team of researchers (led by Prof Coiera) awarded funding for a Centre of Research Excellence in Digital Health.

Dr. Vanessa Marcelino is a postdoctoral researcher working on pathogen genomics at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research (WIMR), University of Sydney, with Prof. Tania Sorrell and Prof. Edward Holmes. She obtained a master’s degree in 2012 from the Universities of Bremen, Paris VI and Ghent (Erasmus Mundus Program) with a dissertation on evolutionary dynamics of ecological niches in seaweeds. In 2017, she completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne focusing on the biodiversity and evolution of microbial communities inhabiting coral skeletons. Vanessa is currently working on genomics and transcriptomics of fungal diseases, diagnostics, and the evolution of antifungal resistance. Her interests include combining ‘omics’ and bioinformatics to understand evolutionary processes and host-pathogen interactions.

A national summit was held on June 29, 2017, at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne, to identify actions to slow the rapid spread of drug resistant infections in Australia. CREID CIs Prof Cheryl Jones, President ASID, and Prof Ben Howden, ASA President led the meeting and CREID CIs Prof Allen Cheng and Prof Tania Sorrell presented in symposia throughout the day. The summit, attended by >300 key human and animal health leaders, focused on the ‘four pillars of antimicrobial resistance’: infection control, antimicrobial stewardship, surveillance and outbreak response, and research & development.

It was agreed that Australia needs better integration and coordination in our response to AMR, both in human and animal health. Furthermore, there was general consensus that no current Australian body was suitably positioned to provide such coordination. Profs Jones and Howden presented the summit report to the Australian Strategic Advisory group ASTAG and have been appointed to pursue actions arising from the day.

CREID ECR Dr Philip Britton (Marie Bashir Institute, University of Sydney, and National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance) has been selected to participate in a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Observership programme that will take place on 4-8 September 2017 in Stockholm, Sweden. The programme is sponsored by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID).

More details about the objectives of the programme and eligibility criteria for participants can be found at the ESCMID website.

As an incoming Fellow of The Royal Society, Professor Eddie Holmes joins the most distinguished academics in science, medicine and technology from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Fellows are elected for life through a peer review process on the basis of excellence in science. There are approximately 1,600 Fellows and Foreign Members, including around 80 Nobel Laureates.

Read the University of Sydney press release here

The NHMRC has funded a $901,396 project grant entitled "Antibiotic resistance and the ecological effects of selective decontamination of the digestive tract in Intensive Care Units", led by CREID Chief Investigator Professor Jon Iredell.

The Australian Academy of Science has announced that the 2017 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health has been awarded to CREID Associate Investigator Ben Marais for his work on childhood and multi drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Read more about Professor Marais' award here

Dr Jason Kwong

Dr Jason Kwong is an Infectious Diseases Physician at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, and a NHMRC postgraduate research scholar with Prof Ben Howden at the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory (MDU) in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of Melbourne, at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection & Immunity. His current work includes the use of genomics to understand transmission of bacterial pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Typhimurium, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, N. meningitidis, and carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae, and the use of metagenomic sequencing for culture-independent diagnosis of infections. Dr Kwong has been awarded research grants from the Austin Medical Research Foundation and the Australian Society for Antimicrobials, and was a member of the expert writing group for Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic. His interests include antimicrobial resistance in nosocomial pathogens, and the applications and implementation of whole-genome sequencing in clinical and public health microbiology and infectious diseases.

Dr Marian Fernandez

Dr Marian Fernandez is a Senior Research Scientist at Westmead Institute for Medical Research (WIMR), University of Sydney and holds a Conjoint Lecturer position in Paediatrics & Child Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney. As a CREID Research Fellow, Marian is working with Prof Eddie Holmes and Prof Cheryl Jones, investigating the molecular epidemiology of infectious RNA viruses through the application of next-generation sequencing and state-of-the-art bioinformatics.

Since completing her PhD, Marian has held research posts at the Victor Change Cardiac Research Institute and at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead (CHW); at CHW she contributed to both basic and clinical research in infection and immunity at the Centre for Perinatal Infection Research, Kids Research Institute. She developed a unique murine model of neonatal and adult HSV infection and generated a series of major findings on the immunopathogenesis of HSV in collaboration with Prof Tony Cunningham, Centre for Viral Research (WIMR) and Prof Stephen Alexander, Centre for Kidney Research (CHW). She has presented her research at many national and international conferences and has published work in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr Alicia Arnott

I completed my Honours and PhD degrees at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, focusing on viral replicative fitness and development of immune responses during acute HIV-1 infection. I then completed two post-doctoral positions, the first in Cambodia at the Pasteur Institute working on emerging respiratory viruses and the second at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, investigating the population genetics of Plasmodium vivax malaria. In 2015, I commenced the two-year Masters of Applied Field Epidemiology (MAE) program, placed jointly between the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL), as I had always wanted to investigate communicable disease outbreaks in the field. Whilst the program has been extremely interesting, I am very much looking forward to relocating to Sydney and commencing my new position as a Research Fellow within the CREID working on pathogen genomics in Associate Professor Vitali Sintchenko’s research group.