ESR Senior Scientist Dr Brent Gilpin held a seminar recently describing the development of PulseNet international - a network of laboratories who generate DNA fingerprinting data on microbial pathogens and share this data electronically.

This laboratory led analysis is enabling the identification of foodborne disease outbreaks at a much faster rate, and with much more success. The network includes countries from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

REANNZ's new Development Coordinator Bill Choquette attended the seminar. "It was fantastic to hear first hand how KAREN has enabled ESR to accelerate and invigorate their role in the development of PulseNet in the Asia Pacific region," said Bill.

Using the PulseNet, middleware will compare genomic DNA patterns of bacterial pathogens from a range of countries including the USA, Hong Kong, Japan and others. The KAREN network will allow the exchange of large databases of patterns, and the establishment of regional databases which ESR will coordinate.

The KAREN network will also take communication among participating countries to the next level, with video conferencing via KAREN having applications not only in continued education among participants, but also in research projects and potentially disease investigation and control.

See ESR's website or the full case study on our site for further information