Título: Bioinformatics methods for surveillance and outbreak detection of bacterial pathogens

Orador: Rafael Fresca Mamede (Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes)

Resumo:

Bacterial infections constitute a major challenge to the global public health system. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) offers high-resolution for bacterial strain typing and has been increasingly adopted by public health institutions for surveillance and outbreak detection. The vast amount of data generated through WGS demands constant improvement of the bioinformatics methods applied in bacterial typing, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene-by-gene methods. The accuracy and computational requirements for applying these methods have benefited from an algorithmic shift towards alignment-free methods and the development of interactive graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that aid in reaching informed decisions.