Articles about 'Sharon Peacock'

Twelve academics from the University of Cambridge have been ranked among the top female scientists in the world - with one claiming the top spot for Europe.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, genomic surveillance proved vital in helping understand the evolution and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Now, an international group of researchers is calling for its potential to be harnessed to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a major global challenge that could ultimately result in many more deaths than the coronavirus pandemic.

Most minority ethnic groups are less successful than their White British counterparts when applying to specialty training programmes in the NHS, Cambridge researchers have shown.

Three Cambridge researchers are among six leading UK scientists who will share the presenting duties with Professor Jonathan Van-Tam during this year’s Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution.

The variant hunters are helping us to understand how and why the COVID-19 virus is spreading, allowing us to fight back against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Sharon Peacock explains the story behind the UK's world-leading SARS-CoV-2 genomics capability.

The UK is a world leader in sequencing SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Of all the coronavirus genomes that have been sequenced in the world, nearly half have been sequenced by COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (Cog-UK). The consortium began life on 4 March 2020 when Sharon Peacock, a professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, emailed a handful of scientists and asked for their help.

The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium has been backed by the Department for Health and Social Care Testing Innovation Fund to expand whole genome sequencing of positive SARS-CoV-2 virus samples to map how COVID-19 spreads and evolves. The £12.2M funding will facilitate the genome sequencing capacity needed to meet the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases expected in the UK this winter.

Scientists have used genome sequencing to reveal the extent to which a drug-resistant gastrointestinal bacterium can spread within a hospital, highlighting the challenge hospitals face in controlling infections.

In late 2019, a new institute opened on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Its timing could not have been better - as the COVID-19 pandemic sent Britain into lockdown several months later, the institute found itself at the heart of the University’s response to this unprecedented challenge.