Jenn Knapp

Krobus pumpkins?

Excited to announce the start of ARTIC2! 🎉 This builds on the success of ARTIC to make sequencing more equitable & accessible. EVE Group at @SwissTPH is a key team member - we'll be making sequences easier to store & share via Loculus & @pathoplexus! birmingham.ac.uk/news/2025/ambi…

Congratulations to all our co-authors on publishing this great work, led by our own @UWaterloo gradate student Delaney Nash: Hybrid sequencing reveals the genome of a Chrysochromulina parva virus and highlight its distinct replication strategy rdcu.be/emvgP

New paper: “Genomic surveillance of Canadian airport wastewater samples allows early detection of emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages.” Led by @Alyssa_Overton_ and @ScienceKnapp from my group. Collaboration with @SafeFoodCanuck and his team, and many others. nature.com/articles/s4159…

@CSM_SCM @CSM_SCM2024 Please help the virtual attendees - the virtual session from 10:30-12pm never went live online! Symposium #6: Microbiomes in Health and Disease Benjamin Willing, Dave Edgell, David Good, Sarah Piche Choquette It still says the "session will begin shortly"

And... @CSM_SCM2024 has officially begun! So much amazing microbiology research to hear about.

@Isabel_Laforest @CSM_SCM2024 @CSM_SCM @UAlberta @CSM_SCM2024 The virtual attendees cannot access this session - it still says the event has not started. Was really looking forward to this one!

@CSM_SCM2024 @CSM_SCM Now kicking off Symposium #6 Microbiomes in Health & Disease with an invited lecture by Prof. Benjamin Willing from @UAlberta on « Understanding the gut microbiome 1 microbe at a time » It is quite nice to go from an environmental session to a health oriented one. #CSM2024

The @CSM_SCM2024 is on! The words of wisdom from president @karidunfield were to continue to honor the legacy of our founder Prof. Murray and to make great memories ⭐️ @CSM_SCM #CSM2024

@mdidanieli @maxwellsmith The current provincial network covers 59 sites across the province, whereas the national program covers only 4 sites in Ontario - all of which are in Toronto. Even if they add some more sites (2, 3, 4?) they certainly won't add 50+ sites in Ontario.

@maxwellsmith Thank you. I guess this is one of the things I was wondering, ie whether the fed program provides adequate regional coverage or if the prov program would be more specific for this. Your argument that inadequate coverage would create inequities is very valid.

@Billius27 PHAC currently monitors 4 sites in Ontario (ALL in Toronto), that can't possibly replace the wide network of sites (59) monitored by the provincial program across the province. No conversations with PHAC have been initiated with the network prior to program cancellation either!

Re the feds expanding wastewater pgm - testing sites will be drastically reduced. Regional variation in Ontario is huge. Without access to objective, local data, “assessing one’s own risk” to determine suitable levels of mitigation will be impossible. Call Ford: 416-325-1941

The Ontario government’s cancellation of wastewater surveillance directly contradicts the recommendation of the Ontario Public Health Emergencies Sciences Advisory Committee. Ontario residents deserve better. Ford’s #: 416-325-1941

Angry about funding cuts to waste water data surveillance? Contact the Premier by Phone: 416-325-1941 TTY/Teletypewriter: 
(for the Deaf and hard of hearing) 1-800-387-5559

Live in Ontario? Angry about Ontario's plan to eliminate waste water data surveillance? Please call and email the Premier to make your voice heard. correspondence.premier.gov.on.ca/EN/feedback/de…

🇨🇦 has been proactive in pandemic preparedness. A robust @ONenvironment wastewater surveillance network supports public health and now @TIPS_SPIIE #INSPIRE #CBRF cross-border surveillance. @GLIERUWINDSOR @UWinResearch @ScienceUWindsor @SafeFoodCanuck cbc.ca/listen/live-ra…

Our latest: Read this #preprint on @researchsquare: Genomic Surveillance of a Canadian Airport Wastewater Samples Allows Early Detection of Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Lineages researchsquare.com/article/rs-418…

Very tired of folks assuring me there's no way they have Covid while also having symptoms & refusing to test

New from our lab & ⁦⁦@jin_oceanvir⁩ A Novel Tiled Amplicon Sequencing Assay Targeting the Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV) Genome Reveals Widespread Distribution in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Systems in the Province of Ontario, Canada mdpi.com/1999-4915/16/3…

Wanted to share with you something near and dear to my heart. Today my colleagues and I are proud to launch the Canadian Covid Society. @CanCovSoc Covid-19 is thankfully not the threat it once was, but there are still significant issues with having a new disease roughly 4x as bad as Flu (and much more contagious) floating around, which also disables a lot of people as well. In Canada it was the 3rd leading cause of death 2020, 2021 and 2022. We have the Canadian Cancer Society, and Heart and Stroke foundation for the 1st and 2nd causes, it's time we have one for the 3rd leading cause of death. It is perfectly natural to not want to deal with this issue anymore. But that's part of the problem isn't it? Many of us have a visceral aversion to discussing it, perhaps a natural reaction to memories of the most traumatizing days of the pandemic. But the fact remains that it's still out there, that it will continue to cause strain on our health systems, disable people, and shorten life for many of us. We need a national body that will keep advocating for things like updated vaccines and therapies, as well as common-sense fixes that prevent the spread of disease, like cleaner indoor air (which could have been very useful stopping this nasty measles outbreak we're having). We need a national strategy to support and improve access to care for Long Covid sufferers, many of whom are simply unable to access any care for a devastatingly disabling condition. 2 out of the 3 Long Covid advocates we approached for our launch event were not able to attend due to illness, which should tell you something! There's no way to predict who will get it, when they'll get it, and there is no cure, yet. We are organizing a virtual press conference for 1pm (ET) today, Wednesday March 6, 2024. A video stream will begin on Youtube, and this url will forward you there: covidsociety.com. Journalists who wish to ask questions please send me a DM and I will send you instructions to join. Our website is up at covidsociety.ca You'll hear more from us as we grow the range of activities offered by the Society. We would love to share resources and help like-minded groups start national societies in their own countries. Would love to see and collaborate with an American Covid Society, a British Covid Society etc. It is time that we create a permanent effort to fight this disease, and not have these efforts subject to political whims or a societal wish to indulge in denial.

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in wastewater: an assessment of nine computational tools using simulated genomic data biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… #biorxiv_bioinfo

New preprint from our lab: A Novel Tiled-Amplicon Sequencing Assay Targeting the Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV) Genome Reveals Widespread Distribution in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Systems in the Province of Ontario, Canada biorxiv.org/content/10.110…