Emerging Infectious Diseases
Contribute to the effort
Interested in volunteering to contribute to ongoing efforts in data collection / annotation and analysis ? We welcome your participation.
For more details, email Dr. Vinod Scaria at vinods@igib.in with a brief overview of your skillsets, time period you would like to volunteers and specific interests and motivation.
Initiative on Genetic Epidemiology of new and Emerging Pathogens in India (genepi) at the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB)
Focus Areas and Diseases
genepi-box is an automated computational resource for assembly, analysis and sharing of pathogen genomic data including for Monkeypox. The resource is built keeping in mind resource limitations in bioinformatics analysis of pathogen genomes.
Infectiradar is a participatory digital surveillance programme to track and trace infectious disease. The purpose of Infectiradar is to map and monitor the symptoms of infections, in people residing in India for research, preparedness and policy guidance.
more information at https://kaiser.genomes.in/infectiradar
Why strengthening genomic surveillance is an imperative
Bani Jolly & Vinod Scaria | Aug 06, 2022Genomic surveillance of pathogens provides interesting insights by following a molecular approach for contact tracing and understanding the transmission of the virus across the world. As cases of monkeypox continue to rise, it is therefore important to strengthen the genomic surveillance for the monkeypox virus. Since data from the present outbreak suggest a sustained human-to-human transmission, continuous genomic surveillance is important to understand the evolution and adaptation of the virus, apart from providing useful data to epidemiologists.
Meet the people who warn the world about new covid variants
Researchers in the UK had just set the scientific world ablaze with news that a covid variant called B.1.1.7—soon to be referred to as alpha—was to blame for skyrocketing case counts there. Jolly, a third-year PhD student at the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi, expected to find that it was driving infections in her country too.
Read more: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/26/1030017/covid-variants-pangolin-pango-volunteers/
How one of India’s premier research institutes is tracking new SARS-COV2 variants
Vinod Scaria, principal scientist at Delhi-based CSIR-IGIB, and Bani Jolly, a graduate student at the same institution, are among a score of scientists from various laboratories who have been involved in the genome sequencing effort in India.
Genome meets GitHub: Using tech tools, India’s virus hunters track a shape-shifting killer
The danger of new virus variants highlights the importance of keeping a close watch on them. That’s where genomic surveillance helps. Using scientific and technological tools — from virtual networks to GitHub pages — researchers are sharing their updates and building genomic databanks to gain an upper hand on the virus and sharpen the weapons to fight it.
