The Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory (MDU PHL) is the longest continuously serving public health laboratory in Australia since 1897, which undertakes reference microbiology testing in Victoria for notifiable pathogens and organisms of public health significance, including surveillance of foodborne diseases, antimicrobial resistance, invasive bacterial pathogens, and sexually transmitted infections.
Comprising of highly skilled scientists, medical microbiologists, bioinformaticians and genomic epidemiologists, the MDU PHL team is dedicated to developing best-practice approaches to public health microbiology. MDU PHL is pioneering the utility of pathogen genomics in public health, providing leadership and guidance in the establishment of sequencing workflows, advice and capacity-building for bioinformatics, and assistance with the integration of genomic and epidemiological data to investigate local outbreaks.
