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Tackling and tracking TB through DNA analysis

In this section

The Bio-medical Research Council (BRC), a part of the Oxford Hospital Radcliffe Trust (OHRT), funds research and many of our staff are involved in BRC research.

Our research is funded from a variety of funders. Their support allows our research to focus on the basic and clinical research domains to accelerate knowledge translation from the bedside to the bench, and back again.

Find out how a multidisciplinary team of scientists came to create England's new way to identify how to fight and track TB outbreaks using DNA analysis.

Interviewees in order of appearance:

  • Dr Nicola Fawcett: Clinical Research Fellow and a Doctor in Acute and General Medicine; Nicola studies antibiotic prescribing and the effects on antimicrobial resistance in the gut bacteria.
  • Dr Jessica Hedge: Population Geneticist; Jessica studies how DNA analysis can be used to understand how bacteria evolve and develop drug resistance.
  • Dr Timothy Walker: Academic Clinical Lecturer and Doctor in Microbiology/Infectious Diseases; Timothy studies how DNA analysis can be used to predict drug resistance, understand transmission of infections,  and inform patient care.
  • Professor Derrick Crook: Research Group Lead and Direct of the National Infection Service at Public Health England; Derrick has led the group in pioneering the use of DNA analysis from laboratory to patient care.
  • Dr Dilrini de Silva: Bioinformatician; Dilrini designs and performs complex, large scale computational analyses of bacterial DNA to provide information on drug resistance and transmission of infections.

Read more about the study (as well as the original paper) on the Modernising Medical Microbiology website.

Derrick Crook

Infectious Diseases & Microbiology

Professor Derrick Crook developed a research programme in translating whole genome sequencing of pathogens and linkage of patient data contained in hospital databases. By linking whole genomic typing of pathogens with this patient data, his research is leading to more rapid and effective diagnosis, management and tracking of common infections such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), Clostridium difficile, Tuberculosis and Norovirus.