29th - 30th January 2025 | ExCeL, London
BACTERIA, BUGS & BIG DATA
It's a microbe's world - we're just living in it.
The Bacteria, Bugs & Big Data Stage focusses on the microbiome and metagenomics on Day 1 and pathogen genomics and public health on Day 2. Check out the agenda below to see what's being covered. If pathogen genomics and public health are of interest, take a look at what else we have planned here.
DAY 1
Day 1 of The Bacteria, Bugs & Big Data Stage focusses on the microbiome and metagenomics whereas Day 2 focusses on pathogen genomics and public health
[topic] MICROBIOME & METAGENOMICS
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Understanding The Biology of Upper Respiratory Tract Microbiome in Health and Infection
- Using metagenomics to further understand the transmission and evolution of known respiratory viruses and other pathogens.
- Acquiring a deeper understanding of respiratory microbiome dynamics and how this influences health and infection.
- Applying metagenomics to enable a better understanding of how the respiratory microbiota changes during infection and determine an implication for the severity of infections.
Speaker
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Sponsored Talk Available
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Microbes, Milk and Mental Health- Exploring The Role of Early Life Determinants of The Gut Microbiome in Later Mental Health
- The evidence (at the level of metropolis and molecule) that the gut brain axis is affected by early life exposures
- That this is mediated by the microbiome
- And that the microbiome is linked to later mental ill health.
- And finally I will introduce a new national birth cohort (Children Growing up in Liverpool- C-GULL) and describe the exciting microbiome work embedded within it.
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[break] Lunch
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Food Options : Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Japanese food
- Live Lounge Over Lunch : 15 mins technology focussed presentations
- Poster Zone : Browse the posters and reach out to potential new collaborators
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
- Patient Perspectives: Talks and discussions on the crucial role of patients and patient families in the understanding and development of treatments for rare diseases.
[topic] MICROBIOME & METAGENOMICS
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Clinical Applications of Routine Pathogen Metagenomics
- Demonstrate how metagenomics can be clinically implemented.
- The advantages a routine metagenomics service can bring for infection control and public health.
- Applications to controlling AMR
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The challenges with implementation and widespread use of clinical metagenomics.
Speaker
Deputy Director, Clinical Infection and Diagnostics Research
Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital
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How Does the Gut Microbiome Cause Colorectal Cancer?
- Diet/microbiome interactions and causation in colorectal cancer
- Exposome-microbiome interactions and cancer risk
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Charting The Unknown Diversity of The Human Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease
- The human microbiome is home to thousands of unknown, uncultured species
- Metagenomic approaches enable us to understand their relevance for health
- A global, large-scale analysis of 15k metagenomes showed hundreds of uncultured species are linked to health
- Microbiome signatures are mostly disease-specific, but one major genus emerged as a keystone biomarker of health
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[break] Break
- Speed Networking: Fun and useful sessions where you’ll rapidly meet other Festival attendees to immediately expand your network.
- Food Options : Grab a coffee and a cake at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
[topic] MICROBIOME & METAGENOMICS
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Integrating Genomics with Single-Cell Chemical Imaging to Understand Drug-Microbiome Interactions
- Increasing evidence shows that many human-targeted pharmaceutical drugs alter the gut microbiome, leading to implications for host health. However, much less is known about the mechanisms by which drugs target the microbiome and how drugs ultimately affect the host through the microbiome.
- In our work, we employ a combination of advanced approaches such as quantitative microbiome profiling, long-read metagenomics, stable isotope probing and single-cell chemical imaging to investigate the impact of widely prescribed nervous system-targeted drugs on the gut microbiome.
- Our studies unveil the impact of widely prescribed medications on the gut microbiome: while some of the tested drugs alter the microbiome, potentially leading to adverse health outcomes, others promote the activity of dietary fibre-degrading microbes and may be beneficial to host health.
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Optimising Metaomic Microbiome Datasets for Antimicrobial Drug Leads
- Advances in sequencing technology and molecular biology provide us an increasing understanding of biological processes underpinned by an abundance of data resource.
- We are thus equipped with nature's own tools with an endless potential for exploration and discovery including of novel compounds.
- I explore how metaomic technologies can be used for optimising antimicrobial drug leads from niche microbiomes.
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Mapping the Respiratory Microbiome at Spatial Resolution
- In chronic lung diseases we know that microbial infections pose a significant clinical challenge and contribute to disease progression
- However we know very little about where these microbes reside in the lung and what lung cells they are interacting with
- We are using spatial transcriptomics on human lung tissue to uncover host-microbial interactions
DAY 2
Day 2 of The Bacteria, Bugs & Big Data Stage focusses on pathogen genomics and public health whereas Day 1 focusses on the microbiome and metagenomics.
[topic] PATHOGEN GENOMICS & PUBLIC HEALTH
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Genomic Pathogen Surveillance at Scale(s) - Tracking Antimicrobial Resistance
- Using genomic surveillance to enhance antimicrobial resistance prediction.
- Understanding genomic population structures of microbial pathogens
- Example case studies of genomic surveillance for different pathogens and how they can inform public health strategy.
- The latest bioinformatic tools that are advancing the handling and analysis of the huge data generated from these studies.
Speaker
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Going Viral: Revolutionising Infectious Disease Through Genomics
- The Ellison Institute of Technology’s vision of an ‘always on’ global pathogen surveillance system in which pathogen genomes are continuously monitored, enabling real time detection of emerging and novel pathogens.
- This programme aims to enhance infectious diseases diagnosis, provide early warning of disease epidemics and support treatment decisions through characterising antimicrobial resistance profile.
- Building on critical partnerships across industry, government, academia and others to ensure equitable access to genomic technologies, particularly in resource-limited settings.
Sponsored by:
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Updates to the UKHSA Pathogen Genomics Strategy
- How is the UK using the latest pathogen genomics approaches in response to infectious public health threats.
- Strategic aims and objectives Priority areas for implementation
- Delivering on the strategy
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[break] Lunch
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Food Options : Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Japanese food
- Live Lounge Over Lunch : 15 mins technology focussed presentations
- Poster Zone : Browse the posters and reach out to potential new collaborators
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
[topic] PATHOGEN GENOMICS & PUBLIC HEALTH
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Applying Pathogen Genomics to the Clinical Setting and Innovations in AMR Control
- Barriers to routinely implanting genomics into pathogen surveillance.
- Forward steps needed to translate genomic applications for AMR surveillance into the clinic.
- Current and future impact on disease control, how will this information inform day-to-day treatments and disease management.
- New and emerging methods for genomic pathogen analysis.
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Early Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases using DNA/RNA-Based Molecular Methods
- Phage-based diagnostics: Leveraging bacteriophages for direct detection of bacterial pathogens, phage-based PCR offers high sensitivity and specificity, enhancing early-stage infection diagnosis.
- Integration of molecular techniques: Utilising qPCR, LAMP, and next-generation sequencing (NGS), etc enables rapid and comprehensive detection of infectious agents with high-throughput capabilities.
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Clinical impact and commercialisation: Partnership between academia and industry have translated advanced molecular diagnostic tools into market-ready products, improving diagnostic accuracy and patient outcomes.
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Single Cell Sequencing of Bacterial Populations
- Bacterial genomes are small but complex
- Human activity driving bacterial evolution
- Consequences to therapeutics Diversity at multiple scales
- Organisms as ecosystems
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[break] Break
- Speed Networking : Fun and useful sessions where you’ll rapidly meet other Festival attendees to immediately expand your network.
- Food Options : Grab a coffee and a cake at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
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The Roles of Bacteriophages in an Increasingly AMR World
- Phages are natural bacterial predators with a long history of use in some places such as Georgia, Russia and Poland
- The UK Government had an Inquiry last year on why phages are not used in the UK, a report has been drafted with several key recommendations to make phages accessible. I will summarise these developments.
- We have established the first UK phage research centre where we are curating large banks of phages and carrying out essential work to underpin phage exploitation. I will discuss the phage collections that we have and show how we are advancing our understanding of them.
- We have been working with doctors to identify phages for bacteria that cause UTIs and respiratory infections. I will show how we have shown efficacy of these phages in different models.
- I will also highlight how we are working to help unblock developments in phage technology both with respect to development and production
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Epidemiological Approaches to Track Transmission Pathways of Bacteria
- Using genome-based approaches to advance our understanding of the spread of bacterial infections.
- Using WGS to identify multi-drug resistant pathogens.
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Intercepting AMR and informing public health approaches.