UK to lead $18 million National Science Foundation pandemic preparation research

A researcher at the University of Kentucky will lead a multi-institutional team hoping to better prepare the world for the next pandemic.

Scott Berry, an associate professor at UK in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is the principal investigator on the project that is projected to bring in $18 million in funding over the next seven years.

Researchers will focus on creating accessible technology to monitor changes in the environment across the world, specifically in less developed countries, to predict what pathogens could affect humans.

“Pandemics don’t respect boundaries. Diseases don’t respect sovereign nations. Even if we’re just focused on the health of the United States, or even just on the health of Kentucky, we really need a global surveillance system,” Berry said.

By taking samples from the air, water, ground and other points in the environment, scientists are able to predict upcoming impacts of pathogens which could harm people. In the thick of the COVID pandemic, Berry and other researchers used similar technology to monitor the prevalence of COVID on UK’s campus.

But, current technology is costly, meticulous, time consuming and only accessible in rich nations.

The United States and Western Europe boast “pretty good coverage,” Berry said, but there needs to be more eyes on places where diseases more often manifests.

“If you think about a new pandemic – whatever the next COVID-19 is – it’s probably not going to pop up in Lexington, Kentucky. It’s going to pop up in places that have more favorable climates, that have more favorable biodiversity, that have more human animal interaction,” he said.

“These are, unfortunately, a lot of the countries that don’t have great access to health care.”

Preparing us for future pandemics

The technology created through the research will aim to be easier and cheaper to use than the current.

Berry said he hopes to see someone load a sample, hit a button and have an immediate answer – like a tricorder in Star Trek. He said the current technology needs “five hours of intense molecular biology” done by an expert, limiting its reach.

“The fundamental idea of identifying something brand new that’s emerging is challenging. Sometimes we have an idea of what’s coming, and sometimes it’s completely out of the blue,” Berry said.

Through partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Berry wants to hone in on animal surveillance, as well. Noticing a sharp decline in the population of a native species may be a sign that trouble is coming for people, too.

Prior studies have shown good environmental surveillance can predict illness outbreaks an average of five days before people start flooding emergency rooms. Berry said because of the way disease spreads, even having five more days to prepare for an influx of patients can greatly lessen the number of people that die.

“I kind of see it like a tornado watch. Some people are going to go into their basement, and some people are going to go on their porch and take pictures,” he said.

“Even a few days of early warning could be really impactful, as far as what we know about the kinetics of how diseases spread.”

Who else will help with the research?

The research team includes scholars from UK, Arizona State University, University of Alaska Anchorage, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the Wildlife Conservation Society Health Program. The group will work as the National Science Foundation Pandemic Environmental Surveillance Center for Assessing Pathogen Emergence, or NSF ESCAPE.

The center is created in name only and will not have a physical location. Berry said the collaborative nature of the center will make it easier for people to focus on their strengths to create the most effective technology possible.

For example, rather than engineers trying to spread a message, health communication professionals will take on the brunt of that effort.

“I think it’s really important to have good messaging, and I think the failure of messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic kind of highlighted that,” Berry said.

“We kind of turned this into a big political issue when it didn’t need to be and I think we’ve learned from that.”