Going Un-Viral: UNC Charlotte creating data tools to help Department of Defense track pathogen migrations

In combating international threats to public health such as the Zika virus, data could be the most important weapon in the arsenal.

Several U.S. Department of Defense agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, are working with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on new data analysis tools created by the university that could help the agency accomplish anything from tracking contagious pathogens to helping anthropologists track population migrations.
UNC Charlotte researcher Daniel Janies, the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Bioinformatics and Genomics, said his data analysis techniques differ from the dots on a map to which the public might be more accustomed.

“We’re taking DNA and RNA sequences out of the pathogens themselves, and by doing so, we’re analyzing that genetic information to connect all those dots,” he said. “We’ll be able to see how a pathogen is moving over space and time along those connections, and we’ll also be able to see what’s changing – those mutations that make the pathogen resist drugs or become more severe.”

Going Un-Viral: UNCC creating data tools to help Department of Defense track pathogen migrations