Alumni webinar #2 Prize for Global Research 2024 - Pedro Henrique Dantas

This new alumni webinars series features the four ITM winners of the Prize for Global Research. The Prize is awarded yearly by the Province of Antwerp to research projects of ‘master-after-master’ students of ITM and other Higher Education Institutes. Development relevance, quality and originality of the master theses are key in the selection. Through this award, the Province of Antwerp wants to stimulate global research.

In webinar #2, MTM alumnus and laureate Pedro Henrique L. F. Dantas (Brazil) shares insights from his master thesis, entitled 'Optimizing a whole genome sequencing (WGS) method to characterize Mpox virus (MPXV) Clade I outbreaks'. In 2022, the world witnessed an outbreak of mpox (previously known as Monkeypox), an infectious disease presenting mostly with skin lesions caused by the mpox virus (MPXV, of Clade IIb). Currently, mpox cases are rising sharply in endemic countries in Central Africa, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other neighboring countries, this time caused by Clade I MPXV (Ib). Viral whole genome sequencing (WGS) has become an indispensable tool for mpox outbreak investigation.

In his thesis, Pedro developed a sequencing protocol for Clade I MPXV. This sequencing protocol is cheaper and has a shorter turnaround time compared to regular protocols, making it ideal for implementation in remote areas where most Clade I MPXV outbreaks occur. By co-developing this protocol with our collaborators, ITM supports genomic surveillance activities aimed to characterising the ongoing mpox outbreaks in DRC. In this webinar, Pedro will present the main findings and outcomes of his thesis, and discuss his recommendations and conclusion.

The Q&A session is moderated by his thesis supervisor Koen Vercauteren, who will enable to answer questions from the audience and share experiences from other contexts.

This webinar has passed. You can find the recording down below.