[VanBUG] VanBUG Seminar: Adam Phillippy – How bioinformatics helped crack the Amerithrax case Feb 11 6pm‏

In the fall of 2001, at least five letters laced with deadly anthrax spores were mailed across the United States. Five died, many others were sickened, and a nation already reeling from 9-11 was further terrified. The resulting investigation was the most complex and expensive in U.S. history. I will retell the story of how The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) sequenced multiple whole genomes of Bacillus anthracis to determine the source of these attacks–an incredible feat at the time. This work pioneered the field of microbial forensics and foretold the future of outbreak genomics, for which this type of analysis is now routine.

Phillippy, A. M., Schatz, M. C., & Pop, M. (2008). Genome assembly forensics: finding the elusive mis-assembly. Genome Biol, 9(3), R55.

Rasko, D. A., Worsham, P. L., Abshire, T. G., Stanley, S. T., Bannan, J. D., Wilson, M. R., … & Phillippy, A. M. (2011). Bacillus anthracis comparative genome analysis in support of the Amerithrax investigation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(12), 5027-5032.

Dr. Adam Phillippy leads the Genome Informatics Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in Bethesda, Maryland. His group is currently developing efficient methods for the analysis of genomes and metagenomes using single-molecule sequencing with diagnostic applications to cancer and infectious disease. Software from his group is available at https://github.com/marbl. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland under the advising of Steven Salzberg, and has previously worked at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR).

This year, you can tune in to view the VanBUG talks live online!  The permanent webcast link is http://vidyoreplay.computecanada.ca/replay/webcastShow.html?key=TAKdbjoDvIqKdLn.  This technology is brought to you by Compute Canada and WestGrid with support from PHSA Telehelath.

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Sessions will also be recorded and archived with the presenters’ consent and our youtube link is http://bit.ly/VanBUGtube.

Note that pizza, beverage and lively social interactions are not available via Webcast! So there are still good reasons to attend VanBUGs in person.

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