GISAID Academy Training Series | USA 2026
GISAID - GISRS - PAHO Bioinformatics Workshop at Options XIII
Washington, D.C., 29 August 2026
Time: 9:00pm - 4:30pm (EST) UTC -4hrs
Venue: Marriott Marquis Washington, DC
On the eve of the Options XIII Conference for the Control of Influenza, GISAID in collaboration with the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is holding a hands-on bioinformatics training workshop to introduce the latest tools and resources for influenza and emerging-virus surveillance.
9:00 – 9:30 am
Opening
Dr. Ciro Ugarte
Director, Health Emergencies
Pan American Health Organization
Dr. Wenqing Zhang (remote)
Director, Global Influenza Programme
World Health Organization
9:30 – 9:45 am
PAHOGEN Surveillance
Dr. Juliana Leite
Laboratory Response Team, PAHO
9:45 - 10:00 am
GISAID Then & Now
Dr. Sebastian Maurer-Stroh
Executive Director, GISAID Data Science Centre, Singapore
Origins, Importance of transparent data sharing
10:00 – 10:30 am
Navigating the Platform
Dr. Aishwary Shivgan
Scientist, GISAID Data Science Centre, Singapore
Navigating the EpiFlu database
Curation best practices: why does this matter?
Visualizing and data retrieval
10:30 - 10:45 am
Break
10:45 - 11:15 am
Learning from Nipah Virus Outbreaks
Dr. Pragya Yadav (remote)
Director in Charge, ICMR-National Institute of Virology, Pune
11:15 am - 12:00 pm
Sequence Annotation
Raphael Lee Tze Chuen
Senior Research Manager, GISAID Data Science Centre, Singapore
Utilizing the GISAID FluSurver,
Quality assessment and clade calling,
Mutation analyses, including adaptation mutations,
Types of download files, AA_Filter: drug-susceptibility mutations
12:00 - 1:00 pm
Lunch Break
1:00 - 1:30 pm
Comparative Sequence Analyses
Ondina Palmeira
Scientist, GISAID Data Science Initiative, USA
Utilization of phylogenetic trees,
Phylodynamics and interactive ggtree
1:30 - 2:00 pm
Surveillance of Zoonotic Influenza Viruses
Dr. Erik Karlsson
Director, Institut Pasteur du Cambodge
2:00 - 2:45 pm
Hands-on Case Studies
Dr. Aishwary Shivgan
Scientist, GISAID Data Science Centre, Singapore
2:45 - 3:00 pm
Break
3:00 - 3:30 pm
Tracking Mutations of Consequence - Part 1
Raphael Lee Tze Chuen
Senior Research Manager, GISAID Data Science Centre, Singapore
PrimerChecker, Emerging variants
3:30 - 4:15 pm
Tracking Mutations of Consequence - Part 2
Dr. Saira Hussain
WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, Melbourne
Antiviral-susceptibility surveillance: WHO AVWG tables
Dr. Emi Takashita
WHO Collaborating Center, Tokyo
Japan Institute for Health Security
Antiviral-susceptibility surveillance: Japan
4:15 - 4:30 pm
Disease X Preparedness and Upcoming Features
Dr. Sebastian Maurer-Stroh
Executive Director, GISAID Data Science Centre, Singapore
EpiX, EpiPhylo, EpiIntel, AI tools
This event is supported by
