A workshop dubbed “From Faeces to Phylogeny” took place at ILRI between 16-17th June 2014. The training work-shop which was organised by CIIE (http://ciie.bio.ed.ac.uk/) in conjunc-tion with Eric Fe vre under the Urban Zoonosis Project, was facilitated by Dr. Melissa Ward, a CIIE Research Fellow.
The main objective was to take the par-ticipants on a journey of analysing pathogen genetic sequence data (e.g. as will be generated from faecal samples in the UrbanZoo project) using molecu-lar phylogenetics to test hypotheses about the spread of disease. The work-shop consisted of 4 half-day sessions over 2 days. Each session was an hour lecture, followed by a 1.5 – 2 hour computer practical. By the end of the work-shop, participants were required to be able to manipulate genetic sequence data, and produce and interpret phyloge-netic trees from genetic sequences.
It was such an exciting moment for all 25 participants who were from various institutions including University of Nairobi, KEMRI and ILRI.
The participants are looking forward to putting the learning to practice and very grateful to the facilitator: Dr. Melissa Ward. 🙂
The Zoonotic and Emerging Disease group studies a range of epidemiological issues revolving around the domestic livestock, wildlife and human interface
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