My PhD research has advanced the understanding of Mycobacterium tuberculosis epidemiology and evolution through the application of (then novel) genomic technologies. I demonstrated that whole-genome sequencing (WGS) provides unparalleled resolution for tracking tuberculosis transmission, revealing the slow but variable molecular clock of M. tuberculosis and enabling the confident exclusion of transmission events previously inferred by traditional methods.

Selected references

The tempo and mode of molecular evolution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis at patient-to-patient scale Anita C Schürch, Kristin Kremer, Albert Kiers, Olaf Daviena, Martin J Boeree, Roland J Siezen, Noel H Smith, Dick van Soolingen Infection Genetics and Evolution 10 (6), 805-805 (2010)

Inferring patient to patient transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from whole genome sequencing data Josephine M Bryant, Anita C Schürch, Henk van Deutekom, Simon R Harris, Jessica L de Beer, Victor de Jager, Kristin Kremer, Sacha AFT van Hijum, Roland J Siezen, Martien Borgdorff, Stephen D Bentley, Julian Parkhill, Dick van Soolingen BMC infectious diseases 13 (1), 110 (2013)

DNA fingerprinting of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: from phage typing to whole-genome sequencing Anita C Schürch, Dick van Soolingen Infection, Genetics and Evolution 12 (4), 602-609 (2012)