Knowledge Foundation’s 5th Annual
Biosurveillance Integration
Integrated Management of Threats to Public Health & Safety
June 30, 2016
The national strategy for biosurveillance calls for a coordinated approach for threats to public health and safety. This coordinated approach brings together federal, state and local governments, private sector, nongovernmental organizations and international partners to enhance existing biosurveillance capabilities and develop new ones that provide decision-makers and responders with the essential information to manage these threats. This strategy recognizes that a well-integrated national biosurveillance enterprise can saves lives by providing essential information for better decision-making at all levels.
Final Agenda
THURSDAY, JUNE 30
7:25 am Registration and Morning Coffee
8:25 Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
David L. Hirschberg, Ph.D., Lecturer and Scientist, Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Global Engagement, University of Washington, Tacoma
»» 8:30 KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: SUCCESS AND HURDLES IN BSV KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: BEYOND COLLECTING DATA SHEETS
Aaron M. Firoved, Ph.D., Director, National Biosurveillance Integration Center, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
The Knowledge integration goes beyond traditional data aggregation from various entities. Knowledge integration begins with well defined relationships between end-users and data owners with a path towards accessibility, analytics and decision support. This talk will address recurring obstacles that plague constructive knowledge exchange between interagency partners and highlight real-world processes and capabilities that have proven successful.
9:00 FEATURED PRESENTATION: Climate Change, Emerging Infectious Diseases and Community Health Resilience: The Need for Early Warning
Jeffrey Stiefel, Ph.D., Executive Coordinator, Climate Change and Health Resilience, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
In the U.S., we can expect wide variations in geographical distribution of food and waterborne illnesses and other infectious diseases. There are concerns that climate change may provide opportunities for pathogens to expand or shift their geographic ranges. What can be done to provide communities and public health relevant advanced and/or near real time information on varying disease threats to local and regional populations in widely disparate geographical locations.
9:30 Third Generation Sequencing for Rapid Biosurveillance
Dave Ussery, Ph.D., Comparative Genomics Group Lead, Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Portable ‘third generation’ sequencing technologies can allow for rapid determination of DNA sequences from environmental samples, with quite long read lengths (10,000 bp or longer). We present ‘proof of principle’ results from known samples, showing that this emerging technology can rapidly detect viruses, bacteria and other organisms from an environmental isolate, in real time.
10:00 Networking Coffee Break in the Ballroom Foyer
10:45 Wearable Technologies: A Paradigm Shift for the Department of Defense
Nicole Rosenzwieg, Ph.D., BioDefense Branch Chief, Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, U.S. Army
Imagine entering an environment immunologically naive to the pathogen flora and without detection assays optimized for the new environment. This is the norm for the Department of Defense. While research continues to expand our detection capacities in these environments, personal health monitoring can be immediately improved. By leveraging the substantive commercial market in wearable technologies, an opportunity exists to rapidly improve the readiness of our warfighting by improving decision and threat awareness in this environment.
11:05 Developing a Strategy for Rapid Response to Emerging Threats: Evaluation of New Molecular Technologies, Comparison with Existing Best Practices, Training with Model Public Health Scenarios and Anticipating the Unexpected
David L. Hirschberg, Ph.D., Lecturer and Scientist, Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Global Engagement, University of Washington, Tacoma
Emerging infectious diseases include new or unrecognized diseases, those that are spreading to new geographic areas and hosts, as well as those that are re-emerging. In this talk, I will separate data from hysteria and discuss ideas that could lead to better policy decisions for world agencies, international businesses, local governments, and individuals when faced with an emerging infection.
11:25 Cataloging the World? The Future of Biosurveillance
Calvin Chue, Ph.D., Research Biologist, U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center; Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Biosurveillance requires a cohesive, concerted effort that spans the world community. Scientific data belongs to all of humanity, but privacy, commercial utility and security considerations must be accounted for. Binomial classification has proven benign, will the same be said for biosurveillance?.
11:45 A National Approach to Sustainable Syndromic Surveillance
Chelsea Wright Thompson, Ph.d., ORISE Fellow, Agriculture Defense Branch, Chemical and Biological Defense Division, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
12:15 pm Networking Luncheon
1:40 Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
Dave Ussery, Ph.D., Comparative Genomics Group Lead, Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
1:45 Integrative Biosurveillance in High Burden of Disease Populations
Harshini Mukundan, Ph.D., Team Leader, Chemistry Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Consideration of external factors is critical to the success of diagnostic methodologies and biosurveillance strategies when deployed in high-disease burden populations. Without focusing on a particular pathogen, we have chosen to study the interplay between the most abundant diseases in a pediatric population and present novel insights with respect to findings, understanding and issues with effective biosurveillance in this population.
2:15 A Next Generation Biosurveillance Application for Big Data Integration and Analysis
Payam Etminani, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Bitscopic, Inc.
This presentation is a case study of a software system successfully deployed at the US Veterans Administration (VA) which successfully addresses biosurveillance integration issues. The real work begins with processing of vast volumes of data in real-time and performing a meaningful analysis that reliably alerts operators of genuine threats and arms them with the necessary information to respond to threats in time.
2:45 Refreshment Break
3:00 Enhancing Analytics through Standards, Policy and Interoperable Product Line
Michael Ricciardi, Managing Partner, Computer Science, Relevant Technology, Inc.
By adopting standards for data processing and algorithm development, we expedite the ability to gather, process and increase accuracy of actionable intelligence and situational awareness for early detection of natural and nefarious bio events.
3:30 PANEL DISCUSSION: Biosurveillance Integration - Challenges and Opportunities for Integrated Management of Threats to Public Health & Safety
Moderator: David L. Hirschberg, Ph.D., Lecturer and Scientist, Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Global Engagement, University of Washington, Tacoma
Panelists: Nicole Rosenzwieg, Director, Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical & Biological Defense, U.S. Department of Defense
Harshini Mukundan, Ph.D., Team Leader, Chemistry Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory
A well-integrated national biosurveillance enterprise can save lives by providing essential information for better decision making at all levels. This panel will explore how technological advances can be implemented to further address the biosurveillance core functions of aberration detection, risk anticipation, threat identification and characterization and information integration, analysis and sharing.
4:30 Close of Conference