The next webinar in the ‘UKHSA Presents’ series will look at the recently launched metagenomics Surveillance Collaboration and Analysis Programme (mSCAPE) initiative.
The webinar will take place on Wednesday 19 February 2025, 11.00am-12noon.
UKHSA Presents is a webinar series which gives an insight into how the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) prevents, prepares for and responds to infectious diseases and environmental hazards to keep all our communities safe.
In January, UKHSA launched a world-first metagenomics initiative to aid in the rapid detection of infectious diseases that could threaten the UK. The metagenomics Surveillance Collaboration and Analysis Programme (mSCAPE), which has been in development over the last year, is piloting the use of metagenomic data for public health surveillance and pathogen analysis. The programme will allow for assessment of the ability to significantly improve identification of new outbreaks as well as enabling the source of an outbreak to be better understood, predictions to be made about the effectiveness of potential treatments, and any concerning mutations can be identified.
The programme is a collaborative initiative, led by UKHSA and involving a consortium of NHS and academic partners including the University of Birmingham, University of Edinburgh, and the NHS Clinical Respiratory Metagenomics Network led by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
At this webinar, attendees will hear from Professor Susan Hopkins (Chief Medical Adviser, UKHSA), Dr Meera Chand (Deputy Director, TB, Acute Respiratory Infections, Zoonoses, Emerging Infections and Travel Health, UKHSA) and Professor Nicholas Loman (Professor of Microbial Genomics and Bioinformatics, University of Birmingham). The speakers will talk more about the development of the programme, its application and the positive impact it will have on preventing, diagnosing and treating illness.