Massey University’s Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health Laboratory (mEpiLab) is located within the Hopkirk Research Institute on the Palmerston North campus and is lead by Professor Nigel French.

mEpiLab research has improved our understanding of the epidemiology, evolution and control of agents of infectious disease and this has led to a significant improvement in the rates of foodborne disease in New Zealand.  The team comprises scientists with expertise in the fields of epidemiology, microbiology, molecular biology, bioinformatics/computational biology, mathematical modelling, veterinary science and public health. We work closely with collaborators in the Crown Research Institutes (AgResearch, ESR, NIWA), regional public health units and other groups across Massey University on pathogens such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli, Leptospira, Cryptosporidium and Giardia.   We develop and apply epidemiological and evolutionary models to understand sources and pathways of human infection, and inform control strategies. 

Professor French is an Investigator in the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution and Director of Massey University's Infectious Disease Research Centre

News

Dr Patrick Biggs from mEpiLab has recently published a paper describing a comparison of two full genomes of Campylobacter jejuni type ST 474, which was responsible for a prolonged outbreak of gastroenteritis in New Zealand. Click here for Full PDF. One isolate was from a human clinical case, the other from a retail chicken purchased in the same town and at the same point in time. The paper describes the differences between the genomes and uses these differences to calculate whether they were caused by point mutations or recombination from other Campylobacter lineages. The plot below is a Circos plot of orthologous genomic regions for the two ST-474 genomes where sequence differences were found.

The figure shows 37 detectable regions. The tracks from outside to inside are; genome region name and size (green, regions of same length in P110b (chicken isolate) and H22082 (human isolate); blue, the region from P110b is longer; red, the region from H22082 is longer); genes and sizes for P110b; genes and sizes for H22082; genes coloured cyan showing evidence of recombination; histograms for P110b (orange) and H22082 (red) showing the nucleotide coverage from the short reads plotted as an average over the length of the gene, along with the standard deviations for the coverage as round circles; histograms showing the number of sequence differences between the genes at the protein level (dark blue on a light blue background) and DNA level (black on a grey background) as a fraction of protein or gene length respectively; a repeat of the gene sizes and locations in P110b and H22082. Gene orientations are shown in purple and yellow for the forward and reverse strand respectively. The nucleotide coverage histograms have the same scale but a different magnitude, 180 and 120 for P110b and H22082 respectively. Similarly the sequence difference histograms have the same scale but a different magnitude, 0.05 and 0.04 for the protein and the DNA histograms respectively.

Visting scientists

In Feruary this year we were very fortunate to have Professor Martin Maiden (University of Oxford, 4th from right), Professor Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster University, 2nd from left) and Dr Barbara Holland (University of Tasmania, 3rd from left) visiting the laboratory for 1-2 weeks for a series of workshops on the molecular epidemiology and evolution of Campylobacter. In the photo are also (from left to right excluding visitors), Dr Patrick Biggs, Anja Friedrich (PhD student), Shoukai Yu (PhD student), Dr Julie Collins-Emerson, Barbara Binney (PhD student), Dr Vathsala Mohan and Dr Adrian Cookson (AgResearch scientist).

Below is a photo from our trip to Mount Bruce. Third from left is Zoe Grange (PhD student).

Radio New Zealand - Our Changing World
Nigel French and his team are identifying and tracing zoonoses - human diseases that come from animals (duration: 12′57″)

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