Publication of Medical Guidelines for the Validation and Application of Typing Methods for Use in Bacterial Epidemiology

ESCMID Medical Guidelines

The ESGEM Annual Business Meeting was held in April at the 15th ECCMID (Copenhagen, DK). Following the recent Call for Nominations, the new ESGEM Executive Committee was formally installed for a 2-year term.
The new Executive Committee members are:

• A. van Belkum (NL)
• B. Cookson (UK)
• N. Fry (UK)
• V. Fussing (DK)
• S. Haeggman (SE; secretary)
• P. Tassios (GR; chairman)

Discussion list on microbial pathogens molecular epidemiology and population genetics
A new discussion list about microbial typing and population genetics has been created. Subscribe to the discussion list EPI-TYPING to get informed by e-mail about ESGEM activities and receive technical information, post-doc positions, meetings announcements, ...

EPI-TYPING website

The ESGEM Annual Business Meeting was held on Monday, 12 May, at the 13th ECCMID (Glasgow, UK). Following the recent Call for Nominations, the new ESGEM Executive Committee was formally installed for a 2-year term. The new Executive Committee members are:

• S. Brisse (FR)

• B. Cookson (UK)

• N. Fry (UK)

• V. Fussing (DK)

• P. Tassios (GR; secretary)

• A. van Belkum (NL; chairman)

ESGEM contributed to the scientific programme at the 13th ECCMID by organizing an interactive Concise Symposium entitled 'What can a molecular typing service mean for a clinician'. Keynote speakers were Professor Hilary Humphreys (Dublin, IE) and Dr Panayotis Tassios (Athens, GR). Active audience contribution to the discussion helped to make the symposium a success.

Members of ESGEM organized and participated in the ENEMTI symposium "Latest Advances in Molecular Fingerprinting Methods for Bacteria and the Construction of Computer Databases"
University of Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday, 23 November.

ESGEM organized a symposium at the 12th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, held in Milan, Italy (ECCMID 2002):
Friday, 26 April: 10:00 - 12:00

1. “Electronic communication of microbial fingerprinting data: feasibility and added value”
2. “The GENE project: construction and use of on-line databases based on automated ribotyping” – S. Brisse (Montpelier, FR)
3. “Problems and solutions for electronic communication of DNA fingerprints – the ENEMTI experience” – K. Towner (Nottingham, UK)
4. “Interlaboratory standardisation of AFLP fingerprints – issues of standardisation and analysis” – P. Savelkoul (Amsterdam, NL)
5. “The sequence-based approach – how useful is MLST in epidemiology?” – B. Spratt (London, UK)

The ESGEM Business Meeting was held on Friday, 26 April, immediately following the ESGEM symposium.

European Union for a Concerted Action entitled ARPAC
Several members of ESGEM played a major role (together with members of other ESCMID Study Groups) in obtaining funding from the European Union for a Concerted Action entitled ARPAC (“Antibiotic Resistance Prevention and Control”). Funding was awarded for 3 years from 1 January 2002. ESGEM is proud to be involved in this initiative and is responsible for a workpackage aimed at developing a DNA typing database and data exchange format for tracking epidemic antibiotic-resistant microorganisms. The Scientific Coordinator for the ESGEM workpackage is Dr Kevin Towner. All members of ESGEM are invited to play an active role in this important European initiative.

ARPAC

European Science Foundation
ESGEM members played a major role in the ENEMTI project (“European Network for the Exchange of Microbial Typing Data”), funded by the European Science Foundation. This network project ran until December 2002.

European Science Foundation