Use of Molecular Epidemiology in Infectious Disease Surveillance

Online via Webex

The Department of Natural Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences is organizing a lecture on the use of molecular epidemiology in infectious disease surveillance by guest speaker Dr. Mira El Chaar, assistant professor at the University of Balamand.

Click here to join the talk. 

Abstract

Development of advanced molecular tools has revolutionized the practice of clinical and diagnostic microbiology. These molecular tools have played a pivotal role in discovering and characterizing several unidentified, fastidious or emerging infections. We used several molecular tools to characterize respiratory viruses in children, identify sexually transmitted infections in women and analyze the molecular evolution of HBV infections. In house diagnostic assays are being developed to address new research questions in communicable diseases surveillance, identify various pathogens directly from clinical specimens, target different organisms simultaneously and characterize antimicrobial resistance profiles of pathogens.