Sadjia Bekal obtained an engineer degree in food quality control and analysis in Algeria and a PhD in Molecular biology at Université de Bourgogne, France. She completed two postdoctoral fellowship at Université Laval and Université de Montréal. Currently, she is the head of bacterial enteric unit at the Laboratoire de Santé Publique du Québec and member of the PulseNet Canada Steering Committee. As an associate professor at the department of microbiology and immunology at the Université de Montréal, her specific research program includes developing molecular and genomic tools for the surveillance and investigation of foodborne disease, and their application to outbreak detection and response.
Role in Syst-OMICS
I am in charge of Activity 4 which aims to develop and apply whole genome sequence-based bacterial strain tools for Salmonella harmonized with PULSENET infrastructure and human surveillance in Canada. My lab is directly involved in the 3 sub-activities:
- Assessment of the discriminatory power of commonly accepted WGS analysis methods and application for establishing relatedness among isolates power.
- Validation of a Salmonella typing algorithm and development of interpretation guidelines
- Genomic comparison in the context of Salmonella source attribution
As a member of the Steering committee, I will follow the scientific progress of the project and make sure that inter-activity synergy is occurring. I am also keeping close contacts with federal and provincial agencies (end-users) to ensure that our deliverables are conform to their needs and constraint utilisation.