BUFFALO, NY – The University at Buffalo's Center for Integrative Global Biomedical Sciences (CIGBS) has become a member of the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition, the industry's first global public health and health science coalition dedicated to early detection and response. soon in the future pandemic. threats
As part of the coalition, Gene Morse, PharmD, professor emeritus of pharmaceutical practice at SUNY US School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, will be the principal investigator, providing expertise and conducting research to expand testing capacities and initiatives. Education on coalition sites.
The Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition was formed to identify, detect, analyze and test emerging global threats, including variants of COVID-19. As Director of CIGBS and Co-Director of the Institute for Global Health at the State University of New York, Morse will work with a network of more than 20 scientific, academic and public health organizations on five different continents to build a network of "Frontline". . “Monitoring infrastructure for emerging and existing virus threats, including:
- Discover and track new pathogens and analyze how known viruses are changing
- Providing and sharing sequencing data to determine if a virus is a known or unknown pathogen
- Do follow-up testing to understand how many people have contracted the virus, where it has spread, and possible risk factors.
- Rapid development and implementation of diagnostic tests, if necessary using first case studies
- Educate the next generation of epidemiologists and virus hunters to be prepared for future pandemic threats
"This is a great opportunity to join other CIGBS efforts, including the Global Viral Network (GVN), and share the years of experience of our UB team mentors with a coalition of young scientists from different countries," Morse said.
Morse is also the principal investigator of several programs funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center, including the US-Zimbabwe HIV Training Program and the UB-West Indies Global Infectious Disease Research Training Program. He is also the primary mentor to two NIH Fogarty Emerging Global Leader Award winners in South Africa and Nigeria. CIGBS is a global center of excellence in virus control with sister centers in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe. "We plan to bring our integrated biomedical science model to Abbott's pandemic defense coalition and establish new partnerships with GVN centers and capacity-building programs such as FIC initiatives," says Morse.
"Global collaboration is needed more than ever to help us prepare for and prevent future virus outbreaks," said Gavin Cloherty, Ph.D., director of the Coalition and Abbott's head of infectious disease research. "UB's addition to the Abbott Pandemic Coalition will help train a new generation of young scientists and build strong capacity at new evidence-based surveillance sites in low- and middle-income countries to stay ahead of the next virus threat."
"UB's anticipated role in the coalition is excellent recognition of the high-quality programs and interdisciplinary approach that CIGBS fosters in its global research initiatives," said Gary Pollock, Ph.D., Dean of UB College of Pharmaceuticals.
Other university professors who have contributed to CIGBS' growing expertise on emerging pathogens include Andrew Talal, Timothy Murphy, Stanley Schwartz, John Tomaszewski, Oscar Gomez, Mark Hikar and Amy Jacobs, all from the School of Medicine and Jacobs Biomedical Sciences. ; Brian Tsuji, Qing Ma, Raymond Cha, and Robin DiFrancesco, all from the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Troy Wood and Paras Prasad from the College of Arts and Sciences.