In an “age of mobility”, the human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic highlights the importance and vulnerability of regionalisation and labour market interdependence in Southeast Asia. This study intended to serve as an early snapshot of the genetic variations of the SARS-CoV-2 within the region and may help identify the endemic genotypes to provide fundamental information for regional surveillance in the future. Three central variants distinguished by the nucleotide changes were observed with a timeline perspective on before and after the countries initial lockdowns. We also mapped the strains for the presence/ absence of marker variants of larger clades names by the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID). For example, the S protein D614G mutation (23404A>G) was observed in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam even before these countries implemented border controls. Current study may provide fundamental information regarding the outbreak control when these countries start to ease lockdowns in future.
University of Malaya, Malaysia
E-mail : cindysjteh@um.edu.my
Dr. Cindy Shuan Ju Teh is a senior lecturer in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Her current interests include molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases of public health significance, antimicrobial resistance, molecular diagnostic, microbiome, and microbial metabolomics. Working closely with clinical microbiologists and infectious diseases physicians, her research group aims to facilitate the understanding and meaning of the genomic changes of bacterial pathogens underlying the complex phenotypes.
University of Malaya, Malaysia
Polly Soo Xi Yap is a PhD candidate in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Malaysia, under supervision of Dr. Cindy. Her PhD research involved using high throughput sequencing and omics technologies to study the composition, diversity, succession and epidemiology of microbial communities relating human health and microbiome. Her research interests include early-life gut microbiome, comparative genomics and epidemiology of infectious diseases and antimicrobial drug resistance.
Dr Cindy’s lab conducts research in microbial infectious diseases. Primary focus is on understanding and characterising the hidden world of microbes in relation to human health through molecular genomic technologies, transcriptomics and metabolomics. Biological experiments involve standard microbiological testing combined with the most recent Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. We are also interested in the application of big data and artificial intelligence in infection control and patient care. Our long-term goals are to improve the understanding of the trends and the impact of changes in genomic and phenomic traits of bacterial pathogens of public health significance.
- Epidemiology (foodborne pathogens)
- Urban and Rural Health (Microbiome and infectious diseases)
- Bacteriology (infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, molecular diagnostic, genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics)
Dr Cindy (pictured fourth from left), Polly Yap (pictured third from right) and the research group co-hosted a public health talk and campaign to a local elementary school to raise awareness on hand hygiene and transmission of infectious diseases.
The laboratory is equipped with sequencing instruments such as Illumina iSeq 100 system to provide comprehensive analysis of microbial genomes for epidemiology and disease studies.
