P102

1:Research Center Borstel Leibniz Lung Center; 2:European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

An intensive two-week training on genomic epidemiology and public health bioinformatics was held from 31 March to 11 April 2025 in Borstel, Germany, bringing together 30 professionals from 10 European countries. Each participating country was represented by an interdisciplinary team comprising a bioinformatician, an epidemiologist and a microbiologist, reflecting the collaborative nature of modern public health practice. The course, funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), aimed to strengthen participants’ capacity to apply next- generation sequencing (NGS) data for infectious disease surveillance and control, with a focus on Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Through a combination of lectures, hands-on exercises with real-world data and group work, participants enhanced their understanding of genomic epidemiology and bioinformatics, gained experience with tools for integrated analysis and visualisation of NGS and epidemiological data, and developed skills for interdisciplinary interpretation of results. The training also fostered collaboration among disciplines within and across countries, promoting more integrated approaches to public health action. Designed for professionals working in public health institutions, the course welcomed both those with experience in computational biology and bioinformatics and those from epidemiology or microbiology backgrounds who are increasingly required to interpret genomic data. This fifth edition of the course confirmed the importance of building interdisciplinary expertise to ensure the effective use of NGS data in public health, particularly for priority pathogens such as M. tuberculosis.