Read this?
Dixon, B. (2009) Cross-talk: I’m not going outside until I check on my gerbil
Lancet Infectious Diseases 9, 527.
In this editorial B. Dixon highlights the value of using animal sentinels in infectious disease surveillance. He writes that “despite longstanding recognition of zoonotic threats, many have neither been studied systematically nor quantified”, and uses recent studies on leptospirosis and campylobacteriosis to show the benefits of such an approach. His conclusion is that microbiological problems need more than microbiology as their solution.
The need for integrated research across human, domestic animal and wildlife populations for emerging and re-emerging pathogens has previously been identified by M. Woolhouse in his Trends in Microbiology paper from 2002. It is great to see that we are seeing some progress in approaching infectious disease from a more holistic angle, rather than studying pathogens or host species in isolation.
Did you know?
The variety of evolutionary mechanisms by which bacteria evolve can pose problems when attempting to infer relationships between strains. Clonal frame is an approach developed by Didelot and Falush for MLST data (2007), which does infer the clonal relationship of bacteria by accounting for not only point mutations but also recombination events. The model estimates the extent of the clonal frame for each branch of the genealogy, which is the subset of the genome that has not undergone recombination.
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Software
Have you heard of Bionumerics? Bionumerics is a database software developed by Applied Maths which not only functions as a database but also includes analytical tools for data mining, querying, clustering, identification, statistics, and much more. For example, the user can create dendrograms or phylogenetic trees, analyse fingerprint data or conduct sequence alignment.
Datasets can be easily exchanged and compared using the integrated database sharing tools. Experimental data as well as sampling and laboratory data from an Access database can be automatically uploaded into Bionumerics, which is of great practical value. There are a variety of free Plugin applications, e.g. one for MLST data and another one for polymorphic VNTR sequence typing.
Journal Tip: Infections, Genetics and Evolution
Infection, Genetics and Evolution is a journal that provides a great platform to publish molecular epidemiological research and to keep updated with recent developments.
From the journal webpage:
“Infectious diseases constitute one of the main challenges to medical science in the coming century. The impressive development of molecular megatechnologies and of bioinformatics have greatly increased our knowledge of the evolution, transmission and pathogenicity of infectious diseases. Research has shown that host susceptibility to many infectious diseases has a genetic basis. Furthermore, much is now known on the molecular epidemiology, evolution and virulence of pathogenic agents, as well as their resistance to drugs, vaccines, and antibiotics.
Equally, research on the genetics of disease vectors has greatly improved our understanding of their systematics, has increased our capacity to identify target populations for control or intervention, and has provided detailed information on the mechanisms of insecticide resistance.
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Book Review
Lee W. Riley, Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases: Principles and Practices, ASM Press, Washington, DC, ISBN 1-55581- 268-6, 2004 (348pp., 21 figures, 6 tables, USS 109.95 Hardcover).
Preview at Google Books (Click here)
This book provides an excellent first introduction into the field of molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases. It is quite applied and provides some very nice examples of relevance to clinical studies, outbreak investigations and research including chapters on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Helicobacter pylori. The field of molecular epidemiology is developing at lightning speed, so the book may now, six years after it was first published, not provide the latest updates on some of the tools and techniques, but it still serves a great purpose in understanding the general principles and practices of molecular epidemiology.
Rating (4/5): 
Upcoming events
Bovine Tuberculosis: Hosts, Pathogens and Environments
Warwick, UK, 13 May 2010
CAVEPM 2010 conference and courses
Guelph, Canada, 29-30 May 2010
Workshop – Molecular epidemiology
Hannover, Germany, 16-18 May 2010
Cornell University's Epidemiology Summer Course (PDF)
Ithaca, NY, 2-6 August 2010
MEEGID X 2010
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 3-5 November 2010
GEOVET 2010 workshop: The application of molecular tools to spatial epidemiology
Sydney, Australia, 29-30 November 2010
GEOVET 2010 conference
Sydney, Australia, 1-3 December 2010
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