In March, our team lunch event was at Siam Central. Our third lunch event of the year was a resounding success, with everyone who attended enjoying the great food and even better company. We were able to connect with colleagues we have not seen in person for a while, as well as get to know some of the newer team members better. The best part was that we all agreed to strictly no work talk, which allowed us to focus on building relationships and having fun.

Members of our team (Jody, Linfeng, Matt) recently ran a bioinformatic analysis clinic at the Research Institute for tropical Medicine, Department of Health in the Philippines, with whom we have collaborated since 2016 on infectious disease genomics and had continuous joint (UKRI) funding. The aim of the clinic was to provide training to biomedical researchers and technicians in the use of bioinformatic tools and techniques for the analysis of genomic data, as well as directly assist them with analysis. Over two days, the team assisted with AMR, COVID-19, malaria, TB, and Schistosoma genomic, transcriptomics and serological data analysis.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting on many aspects of biomedical sciences and healthcare. We have been implementing AI methods that use whole genome sequencing data to identify pathogen mutations to predict drug resistance, geography, and outbreaks.