Research Projects

The transmission of viral infectious diseases of public health concern, such as measles virus and norovirus has changed markedly in the last few years due to the impacts of social restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.  International and returning travellers represent an important source and introduction of these pathogens to Australia; with COVID-19 restrictions likely to have affected the diversity and transmission of these viruses locally. Molecular epidemiology is an important component of outbreak investigations and is used for the analysis of local strain diversity within a global context.  Traditionally short-fragment, Sanger sequencing techniques have been used to perform viral strain identification.  With social restrictions reducing the diversity of circulating viral strains, effective contact tracing has become more difficult with traditional methods. This project will explore the development and optimisation of whole genome sequencing approaches in parallel with traditional Sanger sequencing methods to better characterise clinical samples of viral infectious of outbreak potential in Australia pre, during and post the COVID-19 pandemic.

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