2020
Articles
02 July 2020
Pathogen Genomics: Empowering Infectious Disease Surveillance and Outbreak Investigations
MBI's Professor Vitali Sintchenko editorial article assembles articles on genomic epidemiological approaches to identify sources and mechanisms of transmission of infection and antimicrobial resistance.
02 July 2020
Research to fight antimicrobial resistance and TB in the Pacific
This research will be led by MBI's Co-Director, Professor Ben Marais, and will include trialling bold new strategies to reduce and eventually eliminate DR-TB in the Pacific.
27 May 2020
NHMRC Investigator Grant Success
MBI's Dr Justin Beardsley has been awarded an NHMRC Investigator Grant which will allow him to continue his research into disease burden of chronic pulmonary aspergillus in TB survivors and advance diagnosis and treatment.
11 May 2020
Snow Medical funds COVID-19 research
A $5.5m gift to the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne will aid coronavirus research gaps and fast-track economic recovery.
22 April 2020
2020 World Tuberculosis Day overshadowed by COVID-19
Each year on March 24, we commemorate World Tuberculosis (TB) Day as it marks the day the bacterium that causes TB was discovered in 1882 by Dr Robert Koch. This year, attempts to raise awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of the world’s deadliest infectious disease were overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
24 March 2020
The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2
Prominent MBI researcher Professor Eddie Holmes latest analyses shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.
05 March 2020
Safety of bacteriophage therapy in severe Staphylococcus aureus infection
There is new optimism for phage therapy, an approach that has been with us for 100 years and is now being embraced anew. A rigorous clinical and biological approach will serve us well and effective partnerships between government, industry and the academy are essential.
04 March 2020
Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding
In late December, 2019, patients presenting with viral pneumonia due to an unidentified microbial agent were reported in Wuhan, China. A novel coronavirus was subsequently identified as the causative pathogen, provisionally named 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). As of Jan 26, 2020, more than 2000 cases of 2019-nCoV infection have been confirmed, most of which involved people living in or visiting Wuhan, and human-to-human transmission has been confirmed.
03 March 2020
A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China
Emerging infectious diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Zika virus disease, present a major threat to public health. Despite intense research efforts, how, when and where new diseases appear are still the source of considerable uncertainty.
03 March 2020
Key transitions in the evolution of rapid and slow growing mycobacteria identified by comparative genomics
Mycobacteria have been classified into rapid and slow growing phenotypes, but the genetic factors that underlie these growth rate differences are not well understood.