About TWIW

The short version:

Two weeks in the world, TWIW, is an academic research project as well as an international collaboration. TWIW was launched in September 2019 as an initiative from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). TWIW will shed light on the global distribution of bacterial pathogens and their antimicrobial resistance profiles. Partners contribute randomly collected clinical, bacterial isolates - meaning bacteria from sick individuals, not collected according to any targeted selection. The partners either contribute with the isolates to the project, or with extracted DNA of simply of raw data (see more regarding participation below). The genetic material from the bacterial isolates, is used to identify the precise species of bacteria and to predict its antimicrobial resistance profile.

Motivation:

Global surveillance of spread and emergence of pathogens and antimicrobial resistance, are key components of our combined activities as a research community in promotion of global health. Global surveillance of diseases, pathogens and AMR are being performed at varying scales by a number of institutes and organisations. The output from these efforts vary in scope, quality and cross-comparability due to a number of obstacles encountered by those performing the tasks. Furthermore, there is a complete lack of open-access databases, with the relevant clinical samples and the necessary metadata, to assess global AMR and pathogen prevalence from clinical cases world-wide.

First step: equity database:

Until the TWIW database is made publicly available, the short-term goal of TWIW is to produce an equity-database of sorts, for partners contributing to the project. Creating the intended database requires massive efforts, not least from those who collect the bacterial isolates that make up the database. In lack of funding for compensation of wages and labor put toward the participation in TWIW, partners are offered mutually beneficial partnerships on the TWIW project. This includes shared ownership of and immediate access to the data generated from the isolates they have acquired for TWIW, and invitation to lead study initiatives based not only on the data they have provided.

Why open-access? Because of global sustainable development:

Data is the single most valuable resource coming from research today. Those who have managed to acquire large amounts of data, are also able to use their databases to generate insights, leading to publication and improved metrics, through which academics are scored, when funding needs to be allocated. While it is understandable that research bodies must fund their activities in one way or another, it is important to take note of the increasing acknowledgement within governance, that both infectious diseases and AMR are global phenomena, and require global cooperation in order to be handled properly. If access to databases comes at a cost, access will be minimized to those with financial means to do so. Databases with cost-barriers thereby promote inequality in the ability to conduct valuable research and produce research output, which is an important element in financing and developing research institutions. A lack of means to develop national research and surveillance activities, is part of the reason why some countries find it difficult to contribute to global surveillance of diseases, pathogens and antimicrobial resistance.

Resources

• Project introduction and outline v.1.0 - View
• Project lifecycle v.1.0 - View
• Data framework v.1.0 - View
• Protocol for sampling isolates for TWIW v.2.0 - View
• Protocol for sampling DNA for TWIW v.1.1 - View
• Template for submitting DNA metadata for TWIW - View
• Template for submitting isolates metadata for TWIW - View

Research impact

How to participate

Partners on TWIW can contribute with either samples (bacterial isolates, level 1, or DNA, level 2) or raw sequencing data (level 3). The ambition is that random (but well described) sample selection, as well as clear protocols regarding sample handling and processing, will allow us to create a database. This database contains clinically relevant bacterial species from all over the world, their clinical source information and their antimicrobial resistance profiles. All of the entries in the database are to be cross-comparable due to consistency in protocols and a streamlined analysis pipeline.

How to submit metadata