MICROCON 2026

The 49^th Annual National Congress of IAMM

Date: 28–29 October 2026

Venue: AIIMS, Nagpur

Workshop Topic

Next Generation Sequencing for Hospital Wastewater Surveillance: From Pandemic Preparedness to AMR Detection

Conducted By:
BJ Government Medical College & Sassoon General Hospitals, Pune
CSIR–National Chemical Laboratory, Pune

Day 1 – 28 October 2026

Time	Topic	Faculty
09:00 – 09:30 AM	Inauguration, Workshop Overview & Pre-Test	Dr Rashmita Das
09:30 – 10:00 AM	Wastewater Surveillance: Concept, Evolution and Global Evidence WWS vs Clinical Surveillance Population-level Early Warning Systems WHO & GLASS Environmental Surveillance Perspective Global Examples in Pandemic Preparedness	Dr Mahesh Dharne
10:00 – 10:30 AM	Hospital Wastewater Surveillance in the Era of Emerging Infections and AMR Hospitals as Surveillance Hubs Lessons from COVID-19 Wastewater Monitoring Surveillance for AMR Pathogens and AMR Genes Expanding to Unknown Pathogen Detection	Dr Rajesh Karyakarte
10:30 – 11:00 AM	Designing Hospital Wastewater Surveillance Studies Mapping the Hospital Wastewater Network Sampling Strategy: Grab vs Composite Site Selection and Frequency Biosafety and Quality Considerations	Dr Rashmita Das
11:00 – 11:15 AM	Tea Break
11:15 – 11:45 AM	Demonstration Sample Collection Techniques Concentration Methods Pre-processing Steps	Dr Sushma Yanamandra Kiran Nannaware
11:45 AM – 01:00 PM	Laboratory Methodologies for Detection of Priority Pathogens and AMR Genes Culture-Based Detection of Priority Pathogens Molecular Detection of AMR Genes Introduction to Sequencing-Based Surveillance	Rinka Pramanik
01:00 – 02:00 PM	Lunch Break
02:00 – 02:45 PM	Next-Generation Sequencing in Hospital Wastewater Surveillance Principles of NGS Amplicon vs Shotgun Metagenomics Detecting Pathogens and Resistome Sensitivity, Depth and Coverage Turnaround Time and Cost Considerations	Dr Rashmita Das
02:45 – 03:00 PM	Brief Q/A	All Faculty
03:00 – 04:15 PM	Demonstration and Hands-on Activity Library Preparation Workflow Flow Cell Loading Sequencing Run Setup	Dr Sushma Yanamandra Sai Joshi / Rinka Pramanik
04:15 – 04:30 PM	Wrap-up and Tea Break

Day 2 – 29 October 2026

Time	Topic	Faculty
09:30 – 09:45 AM	Recap of Day 1	Dr Sushma Yanamandra
09:45 – 10:15 AM	Early Warning Systems: Detecting Emerging and Unknown Pathogens What Constitutes an Unusual Signal? Background Noise vs True Signal Role in Pandemic Preparedness	Dr Rajesh Karyakarte
10:15 – 11:15 AM	Bioinformatics Workflow (Part 1): From Raw Reads to Pathogen Surveillance Quality Control of Sequencing Reads Taxonomic Classification Principles Pathogen Abundance Estimation Identifying Unexpected Organisms Interpreting Relative Abundance	Dr Rashmita Das Raunak Kumar
11:15 – 11:30 AM	Tea Break
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM	Bioinformatics Workflow (Part 2): AMR Gene Detection and Resistome Profiling AMR Gene Databases Mapping Reads to Resistance Genes Normalization Methods Resistome Interpretation Linking Gene Signal with Phenotypic Burden	Dr Rashmita Das Raunak Kumar
12:15 – 01:00 PM	Hands-on Data Analysis: Interpreting Wastewater Sequencing Outputs	Dr Sushma Yanamandra Raunak Kumar
01:00 – 02:00 PM	Lunch Break
02:00 – 03:15 PM	Translating Hospital Wastewater Surveillance into Hospital Infection Control and Public Health Action Complementing Hospital Antibiogram Supporting Infection Control Committees Identifying Environmental Reservoirs Role in Outbreak Investigations Responsible Communication of Genomic Findings	Dr Rajesh Karyakarte
03:15 – 04:00 PM	Implementing NGS-Based Hospital Wastewater Surveillance Infrastructure Requirements Sequencing Platforms & Partnerships Data Analysis Requirements Research and Collaborative Networks	Dr Mahesh Dharne
04:00 – 04:30 PM	Post-Test, Feedback, Vote of Thanks and Certificate Distribution