Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Director, Pathogen Genomic Surveillance, Broad Institute
Biography
Bronwyn MacInnis's primary focus is on developing and implementing genomic epidemiology and surveillance approaches for malaria and viral pathogens, and building local capacity to integrate these into routine public health and clinical practice. Bronwyn co-leads the Broad’s large scale COVID-19 genomic surveillance effort, working closely with the Massachusetts and other State Departments of Public Health and the US Centers for Disease Control to monitor variants of concern and to track the evolution and spread of SARS-CoV-2 in New England and beyond. She also co-leads the Broad’s multidisciplinary Global Health Initiative and is a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her global health focuses on malaria genomic surveillance, outbreak prevention and response, and genomics capacity building.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2022 Silicon Valley
Large-scale genomic sequencing efforts are of ever-increasing importance especially in the context of early pathogen detection, disease outbreak prevention, and establishing a predictive and efficient public health response. Rapid generation and access to genomic sequence data for viruses and other pathogens, which could cause a pandemic or serious outbreak, enables the tracking of variants and emerging pathogens (e.g., SARS-CoV-2, influenza, enterovirus D68, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, etc.), and thus the expedient development of diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics essential to supporting public health responses. This very important subject will be the focus of this session.
