The Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) established an integrated pathogen Genomic Core Laboratory that performs genetic sequencing activities across programs and response actions. These activities include detecting COVID-19 variants and identifying and characterizing emerging threats, such as antimicrobial resistance.
The Ohio State Global One Health initiative (GOHi) assessed these capacities to ensure the lab was up to date, including the availability of a trained workforce to conduct routing molecular sequencing activities.
In collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), GOHi organized a two-week whole genome sequencing training at KEMRI’s Wellcome Trust Center in Kilifi, Kenya, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This training aims to support EPHI’s pathogen genome sequence core facility personnel through a hands-on, practice-oriented approach of preparing genome sequence libraries preparation and analyzing bioinformatics.
During the first week, participants learned about genome sequence library preparation, including RNA extraction, quantification, cDNA preparation, multiplex PCR, native barcoding, priming and loading a MinION flow cell and MinION sequencing run. In the second week, participants learned more about bioinformatics analysis, including Linux command line, R programming, multiple sequence alignment, sequence/genome assembly and phylogenetic/phylogeography analysis.