Dr Brian Forde

Adv QLD Industry Senior Research Fe

UQ Centre for Clinical Research
Faculty of Medicine
b.forde@uq.edu.au
+61 7 334 65474

Overview

Brian Forde is a fellow in microbial bioinformatics and Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow at the University of Queensland (UQ) Centre for Clinical Research (CCR). Brian was awarded a PhD from University College Cork, Ireland, in 2013 and developed his interest in bacterial genomics as a postdoctoral fellow at the UQ School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences (SCMB). Currently, his work is primarily focused on clinical microbial genomics, including: the evolution of antibiotic resistance, genomic epidemiology, genomic surveillance of Infectious Diseases and translating genomic research into clinical practice. Since 2017 he has been part of a multidisciplinary team, including researchers, infectious diseases clinicians and infection control professionals, leading the introduction of WGS to investigate hospital-acquired infection in Queensland (https://www.queenslandgenomics.org). In 2020, Brian was awarded Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to explore the application of Artificial Intelligence to genomic surveillance and transmission dynamics.

Research Impacts

Since 2010 Brian has co-authored 52 journal articles, with 13 as first, co-first or senior author. His has been cited 1430 times, resulting in a h-index of 19 and an i10-index of 25 (Google Scholar 28/10/2020). Brians work is regularly published in leading specialist microbiology or infectious disease journals including MBio, AAC and JAC and have also featured in high impact journals such as Nat Comm, Nat Micro, PNAS, CID and CMR. Recent work include a longitudinal study describing a unique comprehensive genomic analysis of a clonal lineage within a single individual over a 5-year period (Forde et al. Nat Comm, 2019). This work provided the framework for the utilization of genomics to help manage and treat patients suffering from debilitating chronic infections.

As part of Queensland Genomics Brian has led and assisted in projects that apply genomics to characterise and resolve infectious outbreaks in clinical settings (Chapman & Forde et al. JCM, 2020; Roberts et al. Nat Comm, 2020; Roberts et al. bioRxiv, 2018). In his current role as lead Bioinformatician for the Queensland Genomics (QG) infectious diseases (ID) project, Brian has developed pipelines for surveillance of priority bacterial pathogens. These tools, which included the development of an outbreak detection and visualisation tool, CATHAI (https:cathai.beatsonlab.com), are used by infection control professional in large Brisbane metropolitan hospitals.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, University of Ireland
  • Bachelor of Science (Honours), National University of Ireland, Galway

Publications

  • Permana, Budi, Beatson, Scott A. and Forde, Brian M. (2023). GraphSNP: an interactive distance viewer for investigating outbreaks and transmission networks using a graph approach. BMC Bioinformatics, 24 (1) 209. doi: 10.1186/s12859-023-05332-x

  • Permana, Budi, Harris, Patrick N. A., Runnegar, Naomi, Lindsay, Margaret, Henderson, Belinda C., Playford, E. G., Paterson, David L., Beatson, Scott A. and Forde, Brian M. (2023). Using Genomics To Investigate an Outbreak of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium ST78 at a Large Tertiary Hospital in Queensland. Microbiology Spectrum, 11 (3). doi: 10.1128/spectrum.04204-22

  • Mu, Andre, Klare, William P., Baines, Sarah L., Ignatius Pang, C. N., Guérillot, Romain, Harbison-Price, Nichaela, Keller, Nadia, Wilksch, Jonathan, Nhu, Nguyen Thi Khanh, Phan, Minh-Duy, Keller, Bernhard, Nijagal, Brunda, Tull, Dedreia, Dayalan, Saravanan, Chua, Hwa Huat Charlie, Skoneczny, Dominik, Koval, Jason, Hachani, Abderrahman, Shah, Anup D., Neha, Nitika, Jadhav, Snehal, Partridge, Sally R., Cork, Amanda J., Peters, Kate, Bertolla, Olivia, Brouwer, Stephan, Hancock, Steven J., Álvarez-Fraga, Laura, De Oliveira, David M. P. ... Walker, Mark J. (2023). Integrative omics identifies conserved and pathogen-specific responses of sepsis-causing bacteria. Nature Communications, 14 (1) 1530, 1-21. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37200-w

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Supervision

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Publications

Journal Article

Conference Publication

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

Completed Supervision