Bringing pathogen genomes to the masses: my science, my legacy with Professor Sharon Peacock CBE
Date: Monday, 5 December 2022Lecture start: 5.30pmRefreshments: 6.30-8.30pm
Venue: Morris LT, Robin Brook Centre, West Smithfield CampusLondon EC1A 7BE
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You are warmly invited to join us at the first lecture organised as part of Queen Mary Presents: Barts and The London Lecture Series.
This new event series will feature leading healthcare professionals, academics and researchers examining some of the biggest questions in the field today.
We are delighted to host Professor Sharon Peacock, the founding director of Genomics UK Consortium as our first speaker. During her talk she will discuss how the generation of the SARS-CoV-2 genome paved the way to track the evolution of COVID-19 and the study of its transmission.
We will aim to host one of these flagship lectures each semester and hope that they become an opportunity for everyone from across the Faculty (whether they are students, staff or alumni) to come together, celebrate successes and make connections. This inaugural event will also serve as a holiday get-together with festive refreshments held in the Pathology Museum at our West Smithfield Campus.
Event Abstract
At the start of the pandemic, myself and many others developed the blueprint for the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, followed by its rapid development, outputs and impact. We generated SARS-CoV-2 genomes for use by public health agencies, healthcare providers and researchers globally. This proved vital to tracking the way that the virus was evolving, and underpinned studies of transmission, disease severity and immune evasion. During this Christmas Lecture, I hope to give you the human story and behind-the-scenes snapshots of what we achieved and why we were successful.
Speaker Bio
Sharon Peacock is an academic clinical microbiologist who has built her scientific expertise around pathogen genomics, antimicrobial resistance, and a range of tropical diseases. She was the founding director of COG-UK (the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium), formed in April 2020 to provide SARS-CoV-2 genomes to UK public health agencies, the National Health Service and researchers. Generating information on variants proved vital for their detection and tracking, and for studies of viral transmissibility, immune evasion, and disease severity.
She has also used sequencing to examine the extent to which antibiotic-resistant organisms can spread between humans, livestock, and the environment. In 2015, she received a CBE for services to medical microbiology. She was a recipient of the Medical Research Council Millennium Medal in 2021.