This week we say farewell to Dr. Sheridan Baker, who joined us in early 2021 as lead molecular biologist for our Ontario Genomics Coalition (ONCoV)
Category: virus epidemiology

Nirmalarajah et al. BMC Infect Dis. 2025 Jan 28;25(1):132. Background: Drivers of COVID-19 severity are multifactorial and include multidimensional and potentially interacting factors encompassing viral

Nasir et al. NAR Genomics & Bioinformatics. 2024 Dec 18;6(4):lqae176. The incorporation of sequencing technologies in frontline and public health healthcare settings was vital in

Gill et al. 2024. The Canadian VirusSeq Data Portal & Duotang: open resources for SARS-CoV-2 viral sequences and genomic epidemiology. Microb Genom. 2024 Oct;10(10):001293. The

Chronic COVID-19 infection in an immunosuppressed patient shows changes in lineage over time: a case report
Sheridan J C Baker , Landry E Nfonsam , Daniela Leto , Candy Rutherford , Marek Smieja , & Andrew G McArthur Virol J. 2024

Jacob et al. Emerg Infect Dis. 2023 Jun 12;29(7). Isolating and characterizing emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants is key to understanding virus pathogenesis. In this study, we

The SARS-CoV-2 Illumina GeNome Assembly Line (SIGNAL) has been updated to version 1.6.2, with an important hotfix to address software version incompatibility for rules using

Tsang et al. Microbiol Spectr. 2023 Apr 24;e0190022. Genomic epidemiology can facilitate an understanding of evolutionary history and transmission dynamics of a severe acute respiratory

Baker, S.J.C., J. Maciejewski, M.-T. Usuanlele, J. Gilchrist, D.R. Sharma, D. Bulir, M. Smieja, M. Loeb, M.G. Surette, AG. McArthur, & D. Mertz. 2023. Investigating

Congratulations Ph.D. student Jalees Nasir!
Congratulations Jalees Nasir on being awarded the Dr. Jordon Page Harshman Bursary! The Dr. Jordan Page Harsham Bursary was established in 2011 by the Harshman

Summer Conferences 2022
(presenters in bold; lab members underlined) Baker, S.J.C., S. Yaqoob, M.-T. Usuanlele, J. Gilchrist, M. Smieja, M. Loeb, S. Khan, J. Pernica, M.G. Surette, A.G.

The Dataharmonizer: a Tool for Faster Data Harmonization, Validation, Aggregation, and Analysis of Pathogen Genomics Contextual Information
Gill et al. 2022. Preprints 10.20944/preprints202206.0335.v1 Pathogen genomics is a critical tool for public health surveillance, infection control, outbreak investigations, as well as research. In

Emily Panousis wins the Michael Kamin Hart Memorial Undergraduate Scholarship for her work on SARS-CoV-2 surveillance!
More information about IIDR Trainee Day and Michael Kamin Hart here.

Jalen Singh, Pranav Pandit, Andrew G McArthur, Arinjay Banerjee, Karen Mossman Virology Journal. 2021 Aug 13;18(1):166. The emergence of a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory

Jalees Nasir awarded 2021 Fred & Helen Knight Enrichment Award!
Congratulations to PhD student Jalees Nasir, who has been awarded the prestigious 2021 Fred & Helen Knight Enrichment Award, which recognizes exceptional promise in early

Surface and air contamination with SARS-CoV-2 from hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Toronto, Canada
Kotwa et al. 2021. medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.17.21257122 Background: The aim of this prospective cohort study was to determine the burden of SARS-CoV-2 in air and on

Sjaarda, C.P., J.L. Guthrie, S. Mubareka, J.T. Simpson, B. Hamelin, H. Wong, L. Mortimer, R. Slinger, A.G. McArthur, M. Desjardins, K. Douchant, Ontario’s COVID-19 Genomics

Congratulations Emily Panousis on being awarded a 2021 IIDR Summer Student Fellowship! For nine years now, these awards have supported trainees working in IIDR and

WISE CREST, Ontario Biology Day, BBS Research Symposium 2021
McMaster Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences Research Symposium Edalatmand. A. & A.G. McArthur. 2021. Ontology-driven method of contextualizing antimicrobial resistance determinants. Poster presentation at the McMaster

Imagine a tiny molecular machine armed with a program to infect human cells, subvert their defenses and make copies of itself to infect neighboring cells