Preventing the next pandemic begins before disease outbreaks occur, in the “pre-emergence” phase, which is the focus of a new center funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and led by the University of California, Davis.
The NSF Center for Pandemic Insights has a budget of $18 million over seven years and includes other U.S. institutions with the shared goal of “harnessing new technologies and developing sensors to detect, study and ultimately prevent pandemics at their source,” wrote Kat Kerlin of UC Davis News in a press release published Thursday.
Funded by an NSF program, the center also brings together four major UCD faculties with its partners: Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Medicine.
“This centre is a moon landing target that will enable us to fundamentally transform the way we conduct investigations in the pre-emergency phase of pandemics,” said the centre’s director, Christine K. Johnson, professor of epidemiology and ecosystem health at the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine and director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute there.
“We will be able to optimize cutting-edge technologies already applied in human health, engineering and agriculture and bring them into this important field to help combat threats to wildlife and pandemics,” she added in the prepared statement.
Most pandemics are caused by emerging infectious diseases that arise in wild animals and are not discovered until they cause outbreaks in humans. The complex nature of infectious diseases makes it difficult for scientists to conduct “targeted surveillance” and collect data at the speed or scale needed to detect pandemic threats, infectious disease experts say.
Preventing pandemics requires a comprehensive understanding of viruses where they occur naturally. This includes knowledge of disease cycles in wild host animals and how these disease cycles interact with the people with whom they share the land. These interactions occur in the phase before viruses emerge.
News of the new NSF center at UCD comes as COVID-19 has been on the rise across the United States in recent months, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it also comes after new COVID-19 vaccines were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday.
In addition, the World Health Organization has declared ongoing outbreaks of Mpox (also known as monkeypox) in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other parts of Africa a global emergency requiring urgent action to contain the spread of the virus.
But pandemics – including recent cases of swine flu and COVID-19 – are typically caused by airborne viruses that spread rapidly, even among people who may not show symptoms.
In contrast, Mpox, which causes visible skin lesions, is transmitted primarily through close skin contact with infected people or their soiled clothing or bedding. Scientists believe it is unlikely to cause a pandemic.
To combat the precursors of a pandemic, Johnson envisions using sensor systems similar to those used to predict unusual weather events or earthquakes – and that have access to high-quality data “at the key fault lines for the emergence of the virus.”
According to Johnson, the center’s scientists have three goals:
- Investigate how epidemics develop in nature, observing animals that are the natural source of viruses. You will build models to understand how diseases can spread before they develop into pandemics.
- Create sensor networks that can detect disease cycles in nature
- And refine your understanding of pandemic risk using sophisticated computer programs that combine model predictions with sensor data.
Together, these efforts can enable large-scale, safe and efficient surveillance of emerging diseases, the center’s officials are convinced.
In other words, who will this work for on the ground, in the real world?
Kerlin said the center and its partners are testing strategies to detect animal movement and disease in a range of species – from bats to birds to primates, to name a few. Such noninvasive techniques allow scientists to collect data without touching wild animals and reach terrain where monitoring wildlife in the field is difficult.
Examples of UCD’s “transdisciplinary work” with the centre include remote sensing of the environment by Troy Magney, Associate Professor of Plant Sciences, and semiconductor technology by Professor Cristina Davis of the Faculty of Engineering, which collects and analyses volatile organic chemicals in the air.
The expertise of Simon Anthony, co-director of the center and an associate professor at the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine, “complements the group’s in-depth investigation of the ecological and evolutionary causes of disease development,” notes Kerlin.
Taken together, such data can alert scientists to real-time changes in the environment and wildlife that require closer investigation, she added.
“We are all too aware of the challenges we face and are well positioned to demonstrate solutions,” Johnson said. “We have strategically built our partnerships to bring together missing pieces to meet these challenges. I think with this center, we have a much better chance of gaining new insights into the changing pandemic landscape.”
The center’s partner institutions, which will lead a number of the center’s activities, include the University of Southern California, Northeastern University, Labyrinth Global Health, Texas Tech University, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, UC Los Angeles, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, University of Michigan, UC San Diego, and Colorado State University.
“Research into emerging infectious diseases is a critical investment in our future and requires a collaborative approach that spans multiple disciplines and sectors and incorporates the latest tools and technologies,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.
He added: “By bringing together experts in biology, computer science, artificial intelligence, engineering and more, these investments are well positioned to predict, prevent and respond to potential pandemics in all forms of life. In doing so, we can protect the health, economic stability and security of our country.”
