BV-BRC Viral Sub-Species Classification Workshop

The Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center (BV-BRC) along with the CDC, NCBI, and NIAID, are hosting a hybrid workshop on viral sub-species classification 8-10 April 2024.

A critical aspect of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic was to trace, classify, and understand the evolving virus lineages, their phenotypic differences, and their impact on diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics.

Classification and tracing of sub-species level variation has also been similarly important in outbreaks of viruses such as influenza, HIV, and monkeypox, and has informed public health risk assessment and communication strategies.

To prepare for the next, inevitable outbreak of virus disease, the workshop will review various classification schemes developed for SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses, examination of the methods and tools developed for classification, discussion of the utility and impact of classification schemes on the public health response, and review of lessons learned from past and current outbreaks.

Workshop speakers include:

• Anderson, Tavis, U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Bahl, Justin, University of Georgia
• Donato, Celeste, Monash University, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
• Hatcher, Eneida, National Center for Biotechnology Information
• Hinrichs, Angie, University of California Santa Cruz
• Korber, Bette, Los Alamos National Labs
• Kuhn, Jens, NIH/NIAID Integrated Research Facility
• Le Mercier, Philippe, Swiss-Prot group, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
• Lefkowitz, Elliot, University of Alabama at Birmingham
• Neher, Richard, University of Basel
• Njau, Emma Peter, Sokoine University of Agriculture
• Rachel Colquhoun, University of Edinburgh
• Roemer, Cornelius, University of Basel
• Rota, Paul, U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention
• Seto, Don, George Mason University
• Simmonds, Peter, University of Oxford
• Smith, Derek J, University of Cambridge
• Wang, Sean, Minnesota Department of Health
• Warren, Andrew, University of Virginia
• Zmasek, Christian, J.Craig Venter Institute

The outcome of the workshop will be to define best practices for establishing sub-species classification systems for these and other viruses that will be important in controlling future out breaks and potential pandemics. The valuable insights and best practices from this workshop will be widely disseminated.

Please visit the BV-BRC’s Viral Sub-Species Classification Workshop page for more information.