Peter van Heusden
Contact Details
- Email: pvanheusden(at)uwc.ac.za
- Email: pvh(at)sanbi.ac.za
RESEARCH FOCUS
Africa (and the Global South more generally) has been disastrously impacted by the history of colonialism and neocolonialism, a history which shapes the current burden of disease on the continent. My research focuses on addressing this burden through improving systems of disease surveillance and access to the tools needed to address infectious diseases. Specifically this follows three themes:
- Developing bioinformatics tools, workflows, platform and capacity for genomic surveillance of pathogens in African public health.
- Research software engineering and developing the computing infrastructure that underlies research, disease surveillance and public health.
- Public sector led innovation, particularly in the fields of digital public infrastructure, digital sovereignty and the production of pharmaceuticals and scientific reagents.
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2026
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2025
- Preprint Coxsackievirus A24: A Causative Agent of Acute Haemorrhagic Conjunctivitis Outbreak in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, between January and February 2024 DOI: 10.1101/2025.04.28.24315795
- Journal Article Is silence in the face of global injustice in the “best interests” of South African universities? South African Journal of Science DOI: 10.17159/sajs.2025/21191
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2024
- Journal Article The PHA4GE Microbial Data-Sharing Accord: establishing baseline consensus microbial data-sharing norms to facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration BMJ Global Health DOI: 10.1136/bmjgh-2024-016474
- Book Chapter Understanding the COVID-19 Syndemic in South Africa COVID-19 Syndemics and the Global South DOI: 10.4324/9781003365358
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2023
- Journal Article A pan-African pathogen genomics data sharing platform to support disease outbreaks Nature Medicine DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02266-y
- Journal Article Galaxy Training: A powerful framework for teaching! PLOS Computational Biology DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010752
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2022
- Conference Poster PHA4GE infrastructure working group: Framework for compute infrastructure for pathogen genomics labs Grand Challenges Global Meeting DOI: 10.21955/GATESOPENRES.1116919.1
- Journal Article A framework for the promotion of ethical benefit sharing in health research BMJ Global Health DOI: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-008096
- Journal Article Establishing MinION Sequencing and Genome Assembly Procedures for the Analysis of the Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) Genome Plants DOI: 10.3390/plants11162156
- Book Chapter Testing Times: COVID-19 Testing and Healthcare Workers in South Africa Caring on the Frontline during COVID-19 DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-6486-1_10
- Journal Article The COMBAT-TB Workbench: Making Powerful Mycobacterium tuberculosis Bioinformatics Accessible mSphere DOI: 10.1128/msphere.00991-21
- Journal Article microRNA profile of Hermetia illucens (black soldier fly) and its implications on mass rearing PLOS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265492
- Journal Article Genomic surveillance of Rift Valley fever virus: from sequencing to lineage assignment BMC Genomics DOI: 10.1186/s12864-022-08764-6
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2021
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2020
- Journal Article Transcriptomics of the Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) Species Complex BioTech DOI: 10.3390/biotech9040019
- Journal Article Capacity building for whole genome sequencing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and bioinformatics in high TB burden countries Briefings in Bioinformatics DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbaa246
- Journal Article Genome Sequencing of a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Isolate Obtained from a South African Patient with Coronavirus Disease 2019 Microbiology Resource Announcements DOI: 10.1128/mra.00572-20
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2019
- Journal Article Advancing HIV Vaccine Research With Low-Cost High-Performance Computing Infrastructure: An Alternative Approach for Resource-Limited Settings Bioinformatics and Biology Insights DOI: 10.1177/1177932219882347
- Journal Article Organizing and running bioinformatics hackathons within Africa: The H3ABioNet cloud computing experience [version 2; peer review: 3 approved with reservations] DOI: 10.12688/aasopenres.12847.2
- Book Chapter Genome Annotation: Perspective From Bacterial Genomes Encyclopedia of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-12-809633-8.20092-7
- Journal Article COMBAT-TB-NeoDB: fostering tuberculosis research through integrative analysis using graph database technologies Bioinformatics DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btz658
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2017
- Journal Article Virome Assembly and Annotation: A Surprise in the Namib Desert. Frontiers in Microbiology DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.00013
- Journal Article An integrated and comparative approach towards identification, characterization and functional annotation of candidate genes for drought tolerance in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench). BMC genetics DOI: 10.1186/s12863-017-0584-5
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2016
- Journal Article Correction: Chromosomal-Level Assembly of the Asian Seabass Genome Using Long Sequence Reads and Multi-layered Scaffolding. PLoS genetics DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006500
- Journal Article Chromosomal-Level Assembly of the Asian Seabass Genome Using Long Sequence Reads and Multi-layered Scaffolding. PLoS genetics DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005954
- Journal Article NetCapDB: measuring bioinformatics capacity development in Africa. DOI: 10.1186/s13104-016-1950-5
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2015
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2014
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2013
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2001
