A new genomic frontier for foodborne disease investigation in Australia

Aims and approach: In this project, we hypothesise that the application of bacterial genomics to the investigation of foodborne disease will uncover occult transmission pathways and reservoirs of infection that would not be detected by ‘conventional’ clinical epidemiological investigation and current typing methods. Through a collaboration with state and commonwealth foodborne disease epidemiologists (OzFoodNet) we will integrate clinical/epidemiological and genomic data to define the characteristics and population structure of major foodborne pathogens in Australia, and investigate the utility of real-time genomics-based tracking of foodborne disease.