The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will organize a global meeting on whole genome sequencing (WGS) for food safety and water surveillance within the One Health framework. For those who would like to be considered to participate in the meeting, the call for applications is open until 4 November 2024.
WGS identifies the DNA sequences of an organism, significantly contributing to a better understanding of variations within and between species of various foodborne and waterborne pathogens. Because the genomic information of such species varies significantly among different geographical areas, having a global collaboration would lead to a strong contribution to make WGS an effective preventive control and monitoring tool for foodborne and waterborne disease cases, which are sickening estimated 600 million people annually around the world.
The benefits of WGS in global monitoring and trend analysis have been once again strongly realized during the recent pandemic time, and thus WGS is expected to make a significant difference in improving the relevant work in various technical fields such as food safety, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) monitoring and water safety and quality. Given the momentum and familiarity to WGS gained by a wide range of stakeholders from the experience of the global pandemic, as well as the current progress and needs expressed by the countries, FAO will organize a global meeting on WGS, scoping in the topics of food safety and water surveillance within the One Health framework to bring together government officials, public health professionals, researchers, development partners and other stakeholders involved.
As the call describes in detail, the meeting will welcome speakers and participants with various technical backgrounds from various sectors. However, because of the limited space, selection of participants will be made by FAO, based on the preset criteria listed in the call. Those who are interested should review the call and complete the application form by 4 November 2024.
Download the call for applications here.
Read the original announce on the FAO website here.
