A new way to map the spread and evolution of pathogens, and their responses to vaccines and antibiotics, will provide key insights to help predict and prevent future outbreaks.
Wellcome Trust Sanger InstituteJul 3 2024 The approach combines a pathogen's genomic data with human travel patterns, taken from anonymized mobile phone data.
This is the first time researchers have been able to precisely quantify the fitness – their ability to survive and reproduce – of different pneumococcal strains. The insight could inform vaccine development to target the most harmful strains, and may be applicable to other pathogens. In this new study, researchers analyzed genome sequences from 6,910 pneumococcus samples collected in South Africa between 2000 and 2014 to track the distribution of different strains over time. They combined these data with anonymized records of human travel patterns collected by Meta.
Dr. Sophie Belman, first author of the study, former PhD student at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and now a Schmidt Science Fellow at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, Spain, said: "While we found that pneumococcal bacteria generally spread slowly, the use of vaccines and antimicrobials can quickly and significantly change these dynamics.
Pathogen Antibiotic Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria Children Genome Genomic Meningitis Penicillin Pneumonia Research Streptococcus Pneumoniae Vaccine
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