Leveraging natural history biorepositories as a global, decentralized, pathogen surveillance network

Abstract

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic reveals a major gap in global biosecurity infrastructure: a lack of publicly available biological samples representative across space, time, and taxonomic diversity. The shortfall, in this case for vertebrates, prevents accurate and rapid identification and monitoring of emerging pathogens and their reservoir host(s) and precludes extended investigation of ecological, evolutionary, and environmental associations that lead to human infection or spillover. Natural history museum biorepositories form the backbone of a critically needed, decentralized, global network for zoonotic pathogen surveillance, yet this infrastructure remains marginally developed, underutilized, underfunded, and disconnected from public health initiatives. Proactive detection and mitigation for emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) requires expanded biodiversity infrastructure and training (particularly in biodiverse and lower income countries) and new communication pipelines that connect biorepositories and biomedical communities. To this end, we highlight a novel adaptation of Project ECHO’s virtual community of practice model: Museums and Emerging Pathogens in the Americas (MEPA). MEPA is a virtual network aimed at fostering communication, coordination, and collaborative problem-solving among pathogen researchers, public health officials, and biorepositories in the Americas. MEPA now acts as a model of effective international, interdisciplinary collaboration that can and should be replicated in other biodiversity hotspots. We encourage deposition of wildlife specimens and associated data with public biorepositories, regardless of original collection purpose, and urge biorepositories to embrace new specimen sources, types, and uses to maximize strategic growth and utility for EID research. Taxonomically, geographically, and temporally deep biorepository archives serve as the foundation of a proactive and increasingly predictive approach to zoonotic spillover, risk assessment, and threat mitigation.

Strengthening global health security by improving disease surveillance in remote rural areas of low-income and middle-income countries

“…Further, effective longer term storage and accessibility of biological samples is needed so that epidemiological trends can be monitored across space and time. 35 Epidemiological results should then be conveyed to policy makers and front-line health workers (eg, clinicians and community health workers), so that efforts target higher risk locations, people, and animal species, and ensure that models capture contextual variation. 20 , 25 …”

Ecological super‐spreaders drive host–range oscillations: Omicron and risk space for emerging infectious disease

“…The DAMA (Document‐Assess‐Monitor‐Act) protocol is a proactive policy proposal derived from the SP (Brooks et al., 2019 , 2014 ). Document: we have increasingly fine‐scale and sophisticated technology capable of documenting the diversity and distribution of potentially pathogenic micro‐ and macro‐parasites before they announce themselves in disease outbreaks (Brooks et al., 2019 , 2014 ; Colella et al., 2021 ; Hoberg & Brooks, 2015 ). The technological toolkit must be expanded in the context of inventories guided by the SP, focusing on potential reservoirs and environmental interfaces that facilitate persistence and transmission.…”

“…The goal is to prevent as many outbreaks as possible and to mitigate the impact of those we cannot prevent. It is essential to archive field‐based specimens for both low‐risk and high‐risk pathogens and their hosts, consolidating resources for biodiversity informatics linking all associated geographic, taxonomic, phylogenetic, genetic and ecological data streams (Colella et al., 2021 ; Dunnum et al., 2017 ); these are the foundations for essential baselines over space and time. Information synthesis, on databasing platforms, can drive rapid and timely availability of vital knowledge about pathogens and disease among researchers and the arena of public policy.…”

“…Information synthesis, on databasing platforms, can drive rapid and timely availability of vital knowledge about pathogens and disease among researchers and the arena of public policy. Communications specialists subsequently translate insights from science into broad‐based awareness for public security (Brooks et al., 2022 ; Colella et al., 2021 ). Information about reducing potential exposure and the early warning signs for disease outbreaks need to be widely disseminated.…”

Phylogenetic Tests of Models of Viral Transmission

“…Guo et al (30) stated "Bats were released after anal swabs [sic] sampling." This practice precludes definitive identification of the bat by museum specialists, and without voucher specimens (tissue, study skin) one cannot compare ACE2 sequences or morphological characteristics from the same individual bat for which the viral genome was sequenced (35,36). Given the many unanswered issues, we advocate the One Health approach to understanding the relationship between "people, animals, plants and their shared environment" (https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/ basics/index.html).…”