Tracking infectious outbreaks by their genomes

Posted August 22nd, 2012 by PCC STEM & filed under Health Sciences.

A New York City patient carrying a multi-drug-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae, a microbe frequently associated with hospital-borne infections, introduced the dangerous bacteria into the 243-bed research hospital while participating in a clinical study in the summer of 2011. To get the outbreak under control, medical researchers used genome sequencing in the middle of this active hospital epidemic to learn how the microbe spread.

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