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Metabiota
Metabiota is a San Francisco startup that compiles data from around the world to predict disease outbreaks. The company is a partner with USAID's PREDICT (USAID), PREDICT and PREVENT programs. In the early months of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, Metabiota and BlueDot independently demonstrated the capabilities of computer analytics to map the future spread of the virus between countries. In an effort to expand its business offerings, Metabiota teamed up with insurance groups Marsh (company), Marsh, Parametric insurance, African Risk Capacity and Munich Re to provide data for outbreak coverage. Coverage would pay out to governments or companies based on stages of severity of an outbreak to help pay the cost to respond. Google invested $1 million into the company while also planning to act as a partner to provide expertise in data analysis. Hunter Biden#Investor and lobbyist, Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners was reported to have a 13.4% stake in the company in 2014. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nita Madhav
Nita Madhav is an epidemiologist and risk modeler who was CEO of Metabiota from 2019 - 2022. Education Madhav graduated from Yale University in 2002 with degrees in ecology and evolutionary biology, and received her Master's in Public health from Emory University in 2005. Career After time at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and AIR Worldwide, Madhav joined Metabiota to work on infectious disease modeling and data science. During the ensuing five years, Madhav's team worked on models to predict epidemiological preparedness and readiness of economies to absorb losses experienced in these extreme, "Black swan theory" events. These models were formalized into the Epidemic Preparedness Index. Along with colleagues from Stanford and Metabiota, Madhav co-authored a chapter on pandemic preparedness for the World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Rubin
Edward Rubin is the chief scientific officer at Metabiota, a company that works on epidemic risk and infectious diseases. From 2002 to 2016, he was a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the director of the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute. In 2012, he was named the Charles J. and Lois B. Epstein Visiting Professor at the University of California San Francisco. Rubin performed testing on the Neanderthal genome, which suggests human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ... and Neanderthal DNA are some 99.5 percent to nearly 99.9 percent identical. He is on the board of directors of the Global Virome Project. References Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American geneticists American med ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PREDICT (USAID)
PREDICT was an epidemiological research program funded by a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant. Launched in 2009, the program was described as an early warning pandemic system. Operations PREDICT was launched in 2009 in response to the influenza A virus subtype H5N1 "bird flu" outbreak in 2005. It was designed and overseen by Dennis Carroll, then the director of the USAID emerging threats division, with epidemiologist Jonna Mazet of the University of California, Davis as its global director. The program was one of four projects within USAID's Emerging Pandemic Threats program, the others being RESPOND, IDENTIFY, and PREVENT. From 2009 to 2019, PREDICT collected more than 140,000 biological samples from various animals (potential Natural reservoir, reservoirs) including over 10,000 bats and 2,000 other mammals.Emily Baumgaertner & James RaineyTrump administration ended coronavirus detection program ''Los Angeles Times'' (April 2, 2020). Research team ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Wolfe
Nathan Daniel Wolfe, Ph.D. (born 24 August 1970) is an American virologist. He was the founder (in 2007) and director of Global Viral and the Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Human Biology at Stanford University. Career Dr. Wolfe spent over eight years conducting biomedical research in both sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. He is also the founder of Metabiota, which offers both governmental and corporate services for biological threat evaluation and management. He serves on the editorial board of ''EcoHealth'' and ''Scientific American'' and is a member of DARPA's Defense Science Research Council. His laboratory was among the first to discover and describe the Simian foamy virus. In 2008, he warned that the world was not ready for a pandemic. In 2011, his book ''The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age'' was short-listed for the Winton Prize. As reported in a ''Wired'' feature in 2020, Wolfe worked with the German insurance firm Munich Re to offer major corpo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent Business
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ''Forbes'' survey of closely held U.S. businesses sold a trillion dollars' worth of goods and services ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukraine Bioweapons Conspiracy Theory
In March 2022, during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials falsely claimed that public health facilities in Ukraine were "secret U.S.-funded biolabs" purportedly developing biological weapons, which was debunked as disinformation by multiple media outlets, scientific groups, and international bodies. The claim was amplified by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese state media, and was also promoted by QAnon and gained support among far-right groups in the U.S. Russian scientists, inside and outside Russia, have publicly accused the Russian government of lying about evidence for covert "bioweapons labs" in Ukraine, saying that documents presented by Russia's Defense Ministry describe pathogens collected for public health research. The "bioweapons labs" claim has also been refuted by the US, Ukraine, the United Nations, and the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''. Kremlin accusations and spread of conspiracy theory Russian and Chinese officials and stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disaster Management Tools
A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. Disasters are routinely divided into either "natural disasters" caused by natural hazards or "human-instigated disasters" caused from anthropogenic hazards. However, in modern times, the divide between natural, human-made and human-accelerated disasters is difficult to draw. Examples of natural hazards include avalanches, flooding, cold waves and heat waves, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, lightning, tsunamis, volcanic activity, wildfires, and winter precipitation. Examples of anthropogenic hazards include criminality, civil disorder, terrorism, war, industrial hazards, engineering hazards, power outages, fire, hazards caused by transportation, and environmental hazards. Developing countries suffer the greatest costs whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Health And Biosurveillance Software
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkeit'' or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science, psychology, marketing, and advertising. In public relations and communication science, it is one of the more ambiguous concepts in the field. Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, and suffered more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder. Etymology and definitions The name "public" originates with the Latin '' publicus'' (also '' poplicus''), from ''populus'', to the English word 'populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contact Tracing
In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying persons who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individuals, testing them for infection, and isolating or treating the infected, this public health tool aims to reduce infections in the population. In addition to infection control, contact tracing serves as a means to identify high-risk and medically vulnerable populations who might be exposed to infection and facilitate appropriate medical care. In doing so, public health officials utilize contact tracing to conduct disease surveillance and prevent outbreaks. In cases of diseases of uncertain infectious potential, contact tracing is also sometimes performed to learn about disease characteristics, including infectiousness. Contact tracing is not always the most efficient method of addressing infectious disease. In areas of high disease prevalenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF; pronounced ), also known as Doctors Without Borders, is a humanitarian medical non-governmental organisation (NGO) or charity of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. Main areas of work include diabetes, drug-resistant infections, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, tropical and neglected diseases, tuberculosis, vaccines and COVID-19. In 2019, the charity was active in 70 countries with over 35,000 personnel; mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers, and administrators. Private donors provide about 90% of the organisation's funding, while corporate donations provide the rest, giving MSF an annual budget of approximately US$1.63 billion. MSF was founded in 1971, in the aftermath of the Biafran famine of the Nigerian Civil War, by a small group of French doctors and journalists who sought to expand accessibility to medical care across nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western African Ebola Virus Epidemic
The 2013–2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease, centered in Western Africa, was the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The first cases were recorded in Guinea in December 2013; later, the disease spread to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, with minor outbreaks occurring in Ebola virus disease in Nigeria, Nigeria and Mali. Secondary infections of medical workers occurred in the United States and Spain. In addition, isolated cases were recorded in Senegal, the United Kingdom and Italy. The number of cases peaked in October 2014 and then began to decline gradually, following the commitment of substantial international resources. It caused significant mortality, with a considerable case fatality rate. By the end of the epidemic, 28,616 people had been infected; of these, 11,310 had died, for a case-fatality rate of 40%. , the World Health ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with diverse environments ranging from savanna to rainforests. The country has a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. The capital and largest city is Freetown. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are subdivided into Districts of Sierra Leone, 16 districts. Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic with a unicameral parliament and a directly elected executive president, president serving a five-year term with a maximum of two terms. The current president is Julius Maada Bio. Sierra Leone is a Secular state, secular nation with Constitution of Sierra Leone, the constitution providing for the separation of state and religion and freedom of conscience (which includes freedom of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
