Plant Health Australia (PHA) will be hosting its third stakeholder workshop on the proposed national High Throughput Sequencing (HTS) database at Agribio, LaTrobe University in Melbourne from 8.30am – 4.30pm on 18 April.

The aim of the workshop is to seek final feedback on the scope of the proposed nationally coordinated HTS database, funded under the Australian Government’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s (DAFF) Biosecurity Innovation Program.

The proposed database will provide a national storage platform for the massive datasets generated by HTS technology. HTS, also known as next-generation sequencing or deep sequencing, is a significant new method in plant health diagnostics. The increasing amount of data being generated by HTS technology on pests and pathogens of plants has emphasised the need for a secure, centralised platform that allows the submission, sharing and analysis of standardised HTS data.

The April workshop will be facilitated by MTP Services which has been contracted to scope and design the database and consult on maintenance requirements. MTP Services has also been undertaking one-on-one interviews with selected attendees from the second workshop to finalise user requirements for database administrators, data providers and data users. Findings from these interviews will be reported at the workshop in April.

For further information please contact PHA’s Cheryl Grgurinovic or Lucy Tran-Nguyen.