I continued watching London Calling 2023 Daily Preview recordings. Zoe McDougall spoke with Loic Lesobre and Stephanie Banakis. Banakis is from NIAID, NIH and Lesobre is from Reneco International Wildlife. Lesobre is involved in large scale breeding and conservation efforts, while Banakis works with influenza. They spoke about the overlaps in their work. Banakis discussed how their work in pathogenomics at NIH aligns with global health and One Health initiatives. They noted that bioinformatics tools are often written in and for English speakers. Lesobre added that providing access to sequencing throughout the world not only builds capacity, but also encourages larger conservation efforts. They were asked about the impact of influenza and sequencing. McDougall ended by restating the goal of Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) to provide broad access to sequencing. I thought this interview was helped share how we may work on different organisms or systems, yet share common goals and approaches.
