Digitizable therapeutics for decentralized mitigation of global pandemics

Abstract

When confronted with a globally spreading epidemic, we seek efficient strategies for drug dissemination, creating a competition between supply and demand at a global scale. Propagating along similar networks, e.g., air-transportation, the spreading dynamics of the supply vs. the demand are, however, fundamentally different, with the pathogens driven by contagion dynamics, and the drugs by commodity flow. We show that these different dynamics lead to intrinsically distinct spreading patterns: while viruses spread homogeneously across all destinations, creating a concurrent global demand, commodity flow unavoidably leads to a highly uneven spread, in which selected nodes are rapidly supplied, while the majority remains deprived. Consequently, even under ideal conditions of extreme production and shipping capacities, due to the inherent heterogeneity of network-based commodity flow, efficient mitigation becomes practically unattainable, as homogeneous demand is met by highly heterogeneous supply. Therefore, we propose here a decentralized mitigation strategy, based on local production and dissemination of therapeutics, that, in effect, bypasses the existing distribution networks. Such decentralization is enabled thanks to the recent development of digitizable therapeutics, based on, e.g., short DNA sequences or printable chemical compounds, that can be distributed as digital sequence files and synthesized on location via DNA/3D printing technology. We test our decentralized mitigation under extremely challenging conditions, such as suppressed local production rates or low therapeutic efficacy, and find that thanks to its homogeneous nature, it consistently outperforms the centralized alternative, saving many more lives with significantly less resources.

Alternating quarantine for sustainable epidemic mitigation

“…The socioeconomic consequences are devastating, from political unrest, to grave economical losses and deteriorating mental health of at-risk demographics 17 . Indeed, pandemicsboth current and future-expose a crucial vulnerability of modern society 18,19 , calling on us to design socioeconomically sustainable response protocols, in the absence of therapeutic interventions.…”

An antiviral self-replicating molecular heterotroph

“…RNA-based therapeutics offer many Interestingly, nucleic acid-based therapeutics are unique in being very highly "distributable": once an oligonucleotide-based drug has been designed and its efficacy and safety confirmed, it can be sent digitally as a sequence file and synthesized locally on commercially available synthesizers. We have recently shown using network models 86 that even when the oligonucleotide therapeutic is much less effective than "chemical" drugs (e.g. a small molecule or antibody), its rapid distribution -compared to shipping via sea and air -consistently enabled us to save more people.…”

Growing Scale-Free Simplices

“…In summary, complex networks encode the basic architecture of social, biological and technological networks, touching upon the most crucial challenges of modern science -from the spread of epidemics in social networks 40,41 to the resilience of our eco-systems and critical infrastructure 42 .…”