On today’s episode we chat with Dr. Andres Castillo, a senior scientist in the molecular genetics department and the public health institute of Chile. Dr. Castillo and his team perform routine surveillance of viruses, bacteria, fungi and other pathogens. His article, published in the Journal of Medical Virology, is about the phylogenetic analysis of the first four cases of the COVID-19 virus in Chile.

Thanks for joining us for this wonderful opportunity to learn from one of the leading researchers on the COVID pandemic. Enjoy!

Talking points:

• Introduction (00:30)
• The current COVID-19 situation in Chile (01:00)
• How the virus entered Chile (02:30)
• The correlation between genomic analysis results and country of origin (07:05)
• What clinically relevant information does this genomic analysis give us? (08:55)
• Questions that Dr. Castillo’s paper covers (11:06)
• Dr. Castillo’s advice to other scientists based on his research (12:33)

Resources:

“Phylogenetic analysis of the first four SARS-CoV-2 cases in Chile."
Journal of Medical Virology. 2020 April 8.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7228331/