NEW YORK – The GeoSeeq Foundation and the Pasteur Network announced on Tuesday that they will partner for cross-border infectious disease surveillance and monitoring. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
The new partnership will connect Pasteur Network's 32 institutes in 25 countries with Biotia's GeoSeeq platform, which combines artificial intelligence and data pertaining to climate, genomics, and public health. The partnership is projected to facilitate data sharing, discovery, and pathogen tracking, which in turn are expected to drive analytics and predictive models of circulating and emerging threats.
According to a statement, the partners will specifically tackle challenges in data governance, platform and community-driven model development, and interpretation. They anticipate connecting more than 40 million data points over the next three years to drive new collaborations, facilitate discovery, and enhance response to infectious disease threats. The partnership will also enable data-driven responses, creation of infectious disease dashboards for ministries of health, and the development of new therapeutics and vaccines.
The project is expected to benefit low- and middle-income countries in the global south in particular and will initially focus on the vector-borne diseases dengue and malaria.
"This partnership marks an important step toward unlocking untapped potential across a leading global infectious disease network," said Rebecca Grais, executive director of Pasteur Network. "Unlocking network potential can transform separate initiatives into a global engine of discovery and more equitable, actionable public health information."
GeoSeeq is designed to overcome cross-border data-sharing challenges and preserve data sovereignty while still allowing data to be indexed and connected on a common platform, the partners said.
"Through this partnership, we are launching an ambitious, open, and dedicated international effort," said Christopher Mason, president and cofounder of the GeoSeeq Foundation. "Pathogens move readily across nations' borders; thus, collaboration should also seamlessly move internationally between scientists, physicians, and policymakers."
Amadou Sall, director general of Institut Pasteur de Dakar and president of Pasteur Network, also said that the partnership "helps to level the playing field, providing support and tools for local groups to tackle regional problems that affect their local communities."