Research Projects

Burkholderia is a bacterial genus, which includes pathogens that cause serious opportunistic infections. These pathogens are typically acquired directly from an environmental source such as soil or water, but infections have been linked to medical products that have been contaminated with Burkholderia. These pathogens are intrinsically resistant to almost all available antibiotics and so therapy is limited to a handful of drugs. A number of serious infections due to Burkholderia (e.g. B. pseudomallei and B. cepacia complex species) have been reported in Victoria Australia. This project will combine Burkholderia genome datasets with epidemiological data to characterise: the genomic epidemiology, source of hospital outbreaks, AMR trends and shed light on the origin of B. pseudomallei cases from Victoria Australia in a global context. Results will inform surveillance and therapy strategies.

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