Below, Participants in TWIW will find useful information, links to the Protocols, as well as a video guide for sampling isolates.
Partners in TWIW have access to cultured bacteria from patient diagnostic samples, via affiliations or access to diagnostic units in the countries that they represent. We ask that they collect 60 random bacterial cultures, with clinical relevance. These samples are found amongst the processed/read samples, and are distributed over a week of samples processed by the unit. With the isolates, partners collect minimal metadata for the study, in accordance with national guidelines regarding GDPR and patient’s rights to their own data.
Partners can then choose to participate in one of three formats:
- By sending the isolates to Denmark;
- By extracting the DNA from the isolates and sending the extracts to Denmark; or
- By extracting the DNA and performing whole-genome sequencing in-house, and sharing the raw sequencing data with us.
We set out to coordinate global sampling for TWIW within a time window of two weeks in the beginning of March 2020. That window has now been stretched a bit, due to a variety of logistical obstacles, and now covers three months (March, April and May 2020), or rather thirteen weeks…. So as such, the acronym still holds (Thirteen Weeks in the World).
TWIW is lead by the Research Group for Genomic Epidemiology, National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark. So far, TWIW has 87 registered partners, distributed across 50 countries.
If you are interested in joining as a partner for TWIW, you can register on the Survey Monkey Sign Up: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8FWZG6S.
Upon registration, we will confirm your eligibility as Partner on the project, and follow up with relevant documents such as Material Transfer Agreement and Collaboration Agreement.
Financial resources:
We invite all partners to participate at their maximum capacity and with any financial resources that they can allocate towards TWIW in the attempt to maximize the “mileage” of our own resources. We offer to send materials for sampling, as well as covering all shipments from and to Denmark. We also offer reimbursements (after approval beforehand), if expenses are held in relation to the project that partners do not have means to cover themselves. We cannot pay for labor hours/time spent on TWIW.
Project resources:
Video guide for sampling isolates