Research Interests:
The National Reference Centre for Mycobacteriology (NRCM) is a state of the art Containment Level III laboratory located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The department has a wide variety of partnerships, affiliations and collaborations at the national and international level. The program mandate is to provide esoteric diagnostic, surveillance and consultation services to the provincial health laboratories. In addition, the NRCM promotes basic research and training.
My research interests focus on mycobacterial pathogenicity with special interest in mycobacterial cell wall and host-immune response interaction.
Post-genomic research includes many diverse aspects of modern science, including laboratory based functional genomics which are aimed at detecting either messenger RNA or protein content of the cells and tissues. Characterization of the differences in the protein expression profiles between prevalent strains of M. tuberculosis would allow us to identify proteins which are present in one strain but absent in the other strain(s) or are up-regulated in one strain but down-regulated in the other strain(s). The outcome of this research will provide a better understanding of the role of mycobacterial virulence determinants.

PUBLICATIONS (Book chapters):
J. Wolfe, K. Blackwood and M. Sharma. Tuberculosis Laboratory Standards: Services and Policies. In: Canadian Tuberculosis Standards, 6^th ed. Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Lung Association/Canadian Thoracic Society, 2007. http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/tbpc-latb/pubs/tbstand07-eng.php (English) / http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/tbpc-latb/pubs/tbstand07-fra.php (French).

PUBLICATIONS (Peer Reviewed):

1. Christianson S, Wolfe J, Soualhine H, Sharma MK. Comparison of repetitive-sequence-based polymerase chain reaction with random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis for rapid genotyping of nontuberculosis mycobacteria. Can J Microbiol. 2012 Aug;58(8):953-64. Epub 2012 Jul 18.
2. First worldwide proficiency study on variable numbers of tandem repeats typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex strains. 2011. Jessica L. de Beer, Kristin Kremer, Csaba Ködmön, Philip Supply, Dick van Soolingen and the “Global network for the molecular surveillance of tuberculosis 2009” (in alphabetical order: David Alexander, Ewa Augustynowicz-Kopeć, Urska Bidovec-Stojkovic, Martin J. Boeree, Timothy Brown, Daniela M. Cirillo, Laura Cruz, Susana David, Raul Diaz, Horng-Yunn Dou, Jason T. Evans, Maryse Fauville-Dufaux, Margaret M. Fitzgibbon, Darío García de Viedma, Maria Globan, Ramona Groenheit, Marjo Haanperä-Heikkinen, Alexander Indra, Kai Man Kam, Rebecca Kramer, Shang Mei, Stefan Niemann, Mihaela Obrovac, Erik M. Rasmussen, Guislaine Refrégier, Jaime A. Robledo, Sofia Samper, Meenu K. Sharma, Wladimir Sougakoff, Petras Stakenas, Ruth Stavrum, Philip N. Suffys, Juraj Trenkler, Takayuki Wada, and Robin M. Warren J. Clin. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/JCM.00607-11
3. Cowan LS, Hooks DP, Christianson S, Sharma MK, Alexander DC, Guthrie JL, Jamieson FB, Supply P, Allix-Béguec C, Cruz L, Desmond E, Kramer R, Lugo S, Rudrik J. Evaluation of mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat genotyping as performed in laboratories in Canada, france, and the United States. J Clin Microbiol. 2012 May;50(5):1830-1.
4. Meenu Sharma, Louise Thibert, Pamela Chedore, Cary Shandro, Frances Jamieson, Gregory Tyrrell, Sara Christianson, Hafid Soualhine and Joyce Wolfe. 2011. A Canadian Multicentre Laboratory Study for Standardized Second-line Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 49
5. Sara Christianson¹*, Joyce Wolfe¹, Hafid Soualhine², Meenu K Sharma^1,3 Comparison of repetitive-sequence based PCR to RAPD for rapid genotyping of non-tuberculosis mycobacteria. 2012. Canadian Journal of Microbiology. Accepted – in pres
6. R Talavlikar, J Carson, B. Meatherill, S. Desai, M Sharma, C Shandro, G Tyrrell and S Kuhn. 2011. Mycobacterium senelaglense tissue infection in a child after fish tank exposure. 22:101-103.
7. Meenu K. Sharma, Mycobacterium tuberculosis Surveillance in Canada, National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases, Purple Paper, Issue No. 24, February 2011
8. J. Gardy, J. Johnston, S. Sui, V. Cook, L. Shah, E. Brodkin, S. Rempel, R. Moore, Y. Zhao, R. Holt, R. Varhol, I. Birol, M. Lem, M. K. Sharma, K. Elwood, S. Jones, F. Brinkman, R. Brunham, P. Tang. Whole Genome Sequencing and Social Network Analysis of a Tuberculosis Outbreak, 2011. New England Journal of Medicine, 364:730-739.
9. S. Malhotra, V. J. Cook, J. N. Wolfe, P. Tang, R. K. Elwood and M. K. Sharma, 2010. A mutation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis rpoB gene confers rifampin resistance in three HIV-TB cases. Tuberculosis 90:152-157.
10. Christianson S, Wolfe J, Orr P, Karlowsky J, Levett PN, Horsman GB, Thibert L, Tang P, Sharma MK. Evaluation of 24 locus MIRU-VNTR genotyping of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates in Canada. 2010. Tuberculosis 90:31-38.