The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has been selected as one of five public health agencies nationwide to research ways of preventing and responding to potential disease outbreaks in the future.
The five agencies, which were selected by the Centers for Disease Control, will establish a Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence that will "foster and improve innovation and technical capacity to better prevent and respond to infectious disease outbreaks," a news release from DPH said.
Funding totaling $25 million over a five-year period will help establish the Bay State's public health agency as a regional center for developing lab capabilities and "epidemiologic application of genomics to public health."
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DPH has several partners, including Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as lead academic partners, along with Boston University, Yale University, Fathom Information Design, Massachusetts General Hospital and Theiagen Genomics.
The other regional centers that were selected by the CDC are the Georgia Department of Public Health, the Minnesota Department of Health, the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services and the Washington State Department of Health.
Together, the five centers will research and implement genomics technologies for public health, while preparing and responding to infectious disease threats. Basically, genomics looks at genomes, which is a an organism's complete set of DNA.
"We have learned a lot about the power of genomics, particularly the role of viral variants in disease outbreaks," Public Health Commissioner Margret Cooke said. "This new funding and collaboration will help us build on what we’ve learned responding to COVID-19, as well as to Zika, mumps, hepatitis A, and other infections of public health importance."
$1.7 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan is going toward genomic surveillance nationwide.
