\u201cGame-changing,\u201d is how Douglas E. Norris, an entomologist and Johns Hopkins University professor of molecular microbiology and immunology, describes Premonition\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we do now in terms of mosquito treatment is reactive \u2013 we see a lot of mosquitoes, we go spray a lot of mosquitoes,\u201d says Norris who worked on the project. \u201cImagine if you had a forecasting system that shows, in a few days you\u2019re going to have a lot of mosquitoes based on all this data and these models \u2013 then you could go out and treat them earlier before they\u2019re biting, spray, hit them early so you don\u2019t get those big mosquito blooms which then might result in disease transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a healthier approach for humans and for the environment, Norris says. And it\u2019s also a more cost-effective approach, especially with COVID-19 stressing the staffing and budget limits of public health departments around the world.<\/p>\n
Building on the idea of One-Health, a concept that reinforces the idea that the health of the humans depends on the environment they live in, Premonition aids public health systems to better measure the efficacy of interventions and the costs of varying approaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the things that can impact our health, the health of our societies and our economies are small,\u201d says Jackson. \u201cThey\u2019re things like arthropods \u2013 such as mosquitoes and ticks, or microbes and viruses that are even smaller; they are at the scales of millimeters, microns and nanometers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Microsoft Premonition\u2019s robotic sensing platform will capture, collect, aggregate and analyze data about these tiny and often seemingly unseen threats.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the sensor networks that we have today \u2013 networks that do things like collect data to predict weather, collect data about the power grid so that we can load balance it, collect information about what traffic is doing so that we can predict it \u2013 all of those sensor networks, which are really hundreds and hundreds of millions of sensors \u2013 can\u2019t see these important species,\u201d Jackson says.<\/p>\n \u201cThese life forms we\u2019re talking about are invisible to basically all of those sensors that we\u2019ve deployed across the globe. And that\u2019s pretty incredible when you think about it, that we have such a huge blind spot about what\u2019s in the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2016, during the peak risk of Zika transmission, 10 robotic smart traps were trained in Harris County to identify and selectively capture relevant mosquitoes and did so with about 90% accuracy. In addition, metagenomic analyses detected microorganisms and viruses in mosquito specimens, and identified the types of animals on which they fed.<\/p>\n Now, with the upcoming deployment of Microsoft Premonition, Harris County will have a sensor network at scale, providing \u201ccontinuous biological situational awareness,\u201d Jackson says. \u201cSo, they should be able to look at a map and see in real time what is happening now. Which, from the weather analogy, just doesn\u2019t exist today. A 24-hour forecast allows them to plan early for specific interventions in the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want a future where emerging pathogens like Zika can be detected and suppressed quickly and equitably across Harris County,\u201d says Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health.<\/p>\n \u201cThis partnership will also evaluate new genomic capabilities to detect known and emerging pathogens from environmental samples \u2013 which we now know is especially important for diseases like COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n The future of public health \u201cdepends on innovation \u2013 innovative science, innovative engineering and innovative policy,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are excited to continue this journey with Microsoft as we learn together.\u201d<\/p>\n The next step is to be able to forecast \u201cwhen and where the threat might emerge, not just 24 hours from now, but say, a month from now,\u201d Jackson says. \u201cAnd to do that, we\u2019ll be refactoring, redesigning epidemiological models so that we can tell Harris County \u2013 \u2018This is a location a month from now where there is a high possibility of an outbreak of West Nile virus,\u2019\u201d the primary mosquito-borne virus in Harris County.<\/p>\n Over the last five years, Premonition\u2019s technologies have been tested in a variety of habitats \u2013 ranging from the sands of the Florida Keys to the remote forests of Tanzania, Africa. \u201cBiology is hard, and we want to do it right,\u201d Jackson says. Science can\u2019t be rushed.<\/p>\n Premonition systems are developed in the \u201cPremonition Proving Ground,\u201d a state-of-the-art Arthropod Containment Level 2 (ACL-2) facility, where wild mosquitoes can be raised, digitized, and observed to develop identification algorithms and evaluate device designs. The Microsoft Redmond campus is also their hub for computationally scanning environmental samples \u2013 obtained and sequenced by collaborating partners \u2013 for pathogens.<\/p>\n Stopping disease threats before they cause outbreaks is a cross-disciplinary and cross-industry challenge.<\/p>\n Deep collaboration with academia is important to develop the right technology based on the best understanding of the underlying science. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded an NSF \u201cConvergence Accelerator\u201d grant, which includes academic partners from Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and the University of Pittsburgh. The NSF Convergence Accelerator is one of the NSF\u2019s \u201c10 big ideas\u201d to rapidly accelerate innovation.<\/p>\n \u201cThis project will provide long lasting contributions to human health and pandemic preparedness,\u201d the NSF said in its award<\/a>, noting that \u201cas deep biome data exponentially scales, the life sciences will become overwhelmed with genomic information. Convergence must lead to new methods to efficiently harness these data and autonomously derive insights.\u201d<\/p>\n Industrial collaborators are also crucial to success. Bayer, perhaps best known for its aspirin \u2013 but also one of the world\u2019s leading agricultural companies \u2013 plays a critical role by providing public health with treatments to suppress mosquito populations. For example, in partnership with other leading companies in vector control, they are working to eradicate malaria by the year 2040. According to the World Health Organization<\/a>, in 2018, nearly half of the world\u2019s population was at risk of malaria.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we need to have in our toolbox a diverse set of solutions, including those that give us insights,\u201d says Jacqueline Applegate, president of Global Vegetable Seeds and Environmental Science at Bayer. \u201cMicrosoft Premonition gives us the opportunity to be able to get a much more realistic perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Premonition will allow Bayer \u201cto utilize data, information tools, and resources in new ways so we can be even more prescriptive and optimize our vector control strategies so that they have the greatest impact,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd as intervention becomes more accurate, we can help free up capacity for countries \u2013 with often limited resources \u2013 for other public health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By the time Zika emerged in 2016 in the Americas, the team had been researching new monitoring approaches for about a year. They quickly produced a small fleet of prototypes. These early robotic smart traps, resembling scale models of circular, high rise condos, were designed to lure, autonomously identify and capture mosquitoes, providing public health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1144,50],"class_list":["post-118368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-innovation","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ethan](\"https:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/how-microsoft-premonition-can-help-in-the-global-fight-against-disease-outbreaks.jpg\")
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