Scripps’ Joshua Levy visits the Secretariat offices
Dr Joshua Levy, project scientist at Scripps Research in the US, visited the PHA4GE Secretariat hub at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) at the end of March.
Short Europe trip strengthens PHA4GE connections
Professor Alan Christoffels’ whirlwind three-day trip to Switzerland and Germany in March proved a productive one as it lay the groundwork for exciting new ventures for global bioinformatics and for PHA4GE.
PHA4GE gathers to talk malaria data standards in New Orleans
PHA4GE kicked off work on malaria genomics data standards at ASTMH 2024 in New Orleans, where Alan Christoffels and Tracey Calvert-Joshua presented a funding proposal on metadata collection.
SANBI and PHA4GE contribute to biodata curation
The Africa CDC hosted its second data-curation workshop in Addis Ababa, building capacity for high-quality pathogen data sharing via the Agari platform. Experts from PHA4GE, SANBI, and NCBI led the training to enhance public health data use.
Member Profile – Rito Mikhari-Chauke
Rito is a Bioinformatician at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (South Africa), specializing in bacterial pathogen genomics and public health. Passionate about bridging medical microbiology and public health, she explores metagenomic approaches for meningitis pathogen sequencing.
PHA4GE doing its bit in new global wastewater initiative
Prof. Alan Christoffels joined the GLOWACON Regional Conference in Addis Ababa, supporting efforts to integrate wastewater monitoring into public health systems worldwide.
Pathogen genomics under the spotlight at Thailand meeting
With PHA4GE members spread across the globe, in-person meetups are always a valued opportunity. Several members recently gathered at the IPSN Global Partners Forum in Bangkok, Thailand (Nov 21–22, 2024) to connect, collaborate, and advance global pathogen surveillance efforts.
Insights from a Volunteering Intern at PHA4GE
Ghislaine van Vlijmen reflects on her three-month voluntary internship with PHA4GE, where she contributed to organizational sustainability and assisted in multiple portfolios. Her experience highlights the power of partnerships in advancing bioinformatics solutions for public health.
Data Repositories Working Group: Welcome to our new Chairs!
Arthur Shem Kasambula and Dr. Emma Hodcroft have joined PHA4GE’s Data Repositories Working Group as co-chairs, aiming to advance tools and databases like Pathoplexus for improved pathogen data sharing. Their efforts will drive consensus-driven solutions and technical recommendations to enhance usability and integration across global data systems.
Introducing Pathoplexus
We are announcing Pathoplexus, a specialised genomic database for viruses of public health importance. By combining modern open-source software with transparent governance structures, Pathoplexus fills a niche within the existing genomic sequencing database landscape, aiming to meet requests from both data submitters and users and striving to improve equity.