The Inter-European Union Reference Laboratories (EURLs) Working Group (WG) has been established by the European Commission with the aim to promote the use of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) across the EURLs' networks, build NGS capacity within the EU and ensure liaison with the work of the EURLs and the work of EFSA and ECDC European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on the NGS mandate sent by the Commission. The WG includes all the EURLs operating in the field of the microbiological contamination of food and feed and is coordinated by the EURL European Union Reference Laboratory for E. coli.
The documents are meant to provide guidance to the laboratories in the area of application of NGS and have been produced by the working group with the aim of being diffused to all the networks of NRLs National Reference Laboratories .
Links to these documents at the respective curators' websites can be found below.
- Overview of conducted and planned PTs – curated by EURL-Antimicrobial Resistance
- Reference Whole Genome Sequencing collection – curated by EURL-Salmonella
- NGS laboratory procedures – curated by EURL-Parasites
- Bioinformatics tools for basic analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data – curated by EURL-E. coli
- Guidance document for cluster analysis of whole genome sequence data – curated by EURL-Campylobacter
- Guidance document for NGS-Benchmarking – curated by EURL-Listeria monocytogenes
- Inventory of training supports – curated by EURL-Coagulase-Positive Staphylococci (pdf)
- Survey on the use of NGS across the NRLs networks – curated by EURL-E. coli
Conferences and seminars
Webinar: 'Proficiency Tests on Next Generation Sequencing: approaches in use at the European Union Reference Laboratories' (September 29, 2023)
This event, organized by the Inter EURLs WG on NGS, aimed at presenting the approaches used by EURLs AMR, Campylobacter, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella and VTEC for Proficiency Tests on NGS, to share experiences learnt and serve as guidelines for the organization of Proficiency Tests on NGS at the Member State level.
"Science meets Policy" conference 2023: Using Next Generation Sequencing to tackle foodborne threats (September 5-6, 2023).
"Science meets Policy" conference 2020: 'Modern technologies to enable response to crises: Next Generation Sequencing to tackle food-borne diseases (September 25, 2020) - find presentations below.