Professors Susana Campino and Taane Clark recently gave talks at the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand, with whom we have ongoing UKRI-funded projects in COVID-19 and TB. The talks focused on applications of our latest genomics tools in malaria parasites and vectors, TB and Klebsiella bacteria. Many thanks to Dr. Surakameth for hosting the LSHTM team. Staff from the Thailand Ministry of Health have visited the LSHTM for training, data generation and analysis in July 2022 and February/March 2023.

Human genome-wide association studies have failed so far to reveal reproducible susceptibility loci, attributed in part to the influence of the underlying Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterial genotype on the outcome of the infection. In recent work by Jody et al, by implementing a phylogenetic tree-based analysis for 714 TB patients from Thailand, we identify eight putative genetic interaction points both linked to the IFNγ cytokine and host immune system. The genome-to-genome analysis reveals a complex interactome picture, supports host-pathogen adaptation and co-evolution in TB, and has potential applications to large-scale studies across many TB endemic populations

Plasmodium knowlesi is a parasite that causes malaria in humans and other primates. It is found throughout Southeast Asia, and is the most common cause of human malaria in Malaysia. A published large-scale genomic analysis of Plasmodium knowlesi led by Anna et al. recently confirms that the parasite falls into three main sub-populations distinguished by a combination of geographical location (Borneo, Peninsula) and macaque host (Macaca fascicularis and M. nemestrina). The analysis reveals differences in Borneo clusters linked to mosquito-related stages of the parasite cycle, in contrast to differences in host-related stages for the Peninsula group. The work identifies new genetic exchange events, including introgressions between Malaysian Peninsula and M. nemestrina-associated clusters on various chromosomes.