Scripps Research announced on July 2 that it has received two new grants totaling $2 million from the Gates Foundation to advance wastewater pathogen surveillance using artificial intelligence. The funding will support the development of more comprehensive technologies for monitoring infectious diseases and building AI systems to integrate diverse data, with the goal of improving outbreak prediction.
Both grants are part of the Modjadji Initiative, which aims to create affordable and scalable pathogen surveillance systems, particularly for low- and middle-income countries. One award renews a 2023 Gates Foundation grant led by Scripps Research professor Kristian Andersen and Levy in collaboration with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
The research team plans to expand computational and laboratory methods used in wastewater surveillance, allowing them to monitor a broader range of pathogens while addressing gaps that limit disease tracking in many regions. They also intend to adapt these tools for use with non-traditional wastewater sources such as streams, canals, and other surface waters affected by human waste.
A central component of this project is Freyja, an open-source analysis platform developed by Andersen's lab that was widely adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. With renewed support, Levy and colleagues aim to enhance Freyja’s capabilities to detect additional infectious threats while optimizing protocols for use in low-resource settings. "Our goal is for the laboratory protocols, computational tools and resulting data to remain openly available so they can be used by researchers and public health agencies around the world," Levy said.
The second grant focuses on developing AI and machine learning approaches led by Levy and institute investigator Karthik Gangavarapu. These approaches will integrate multiple types of testing data from both wastewater and clinical sources into unified models designed to fill gaps in current surveillance systems. The initial focus will be on South Africa and Zambia through partnerships with local public health institutes.
Levy said bringing together different sources of information is essential: "Bringing these different sources of information together is essential for responding to emerging threats, and to prepare for the threats we haven't seen yet... By integrating these diverse data streams, we can build robust and scalable public health surveillance that provides more accurate and actionable data for decision-makers."
