"to prevent illness and death from infectious diseases through epidemiologic research and the rapid translation of scientific information into real-world practical applications and solutions"
The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) is a center within the University of Minnesota that focuses on addressing public health preparedness and emerging infectious disease response. It was founded in 2001 by Dr. Michael Osterholm, in order to "prevent illness and death from infectious diseases through epidemiological research and rapid translation of scientific information into real-world practical applications and solutions".[1] It is not part of the Center for Disease Control or National Institute of Health.
Michael Osterholm founded Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) in 2001.[1]
In 2019, the CIDR (Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle) was absorbed by the Seattle Children's Research Institute but the CIDRAP is not the same organization.[2][3]
CIDRAP's news publishing division writes news stories and maintains information on influenza, bioterrorism, and new hot topics.[4]
The CIDRAP news team, through the CIDRAP web site, provides daily news updates on emerging infectious diseases, such as pandemic influenza, bioterrorism, food safety, avian influenza, and emerging topics. Along with news articles, the site provides overviews on various infectious disease topics, as well as lists of recent selected literature for each topic. CIDRAP's daily news service has 20,000 current newsletter subscribers and over 36,000 Twitter followers.
Influenza Vaccines Roadmap
CIDRAP is leading an international collaborative effort to develop an influenza vaccines R&D roadmap (IVR), aimed at accelerating progress toward universal or broadly protective influenza vaccines, one of the most critical global public-health priorities. The IVR serves as a valuable tool to advance the development of novel vaccines that improve the breadth and durability of protection from influenza infection and severe disease. It encompasses incremental improvements in strain-specific seasonal vaccines, as well as transformational changes in vaccine technology designed to induce broad, durable protection against seasonal and pandemic influenza viruses.
Antimicrobial Stewardship Program
Antimicrobial resistance is a critical global public health issue, and antimicrobial stewardship strategies are key to curtailing the problem. CIDRAP's Antimicrobial Stewardship Project provides current, accurate, and comprehensive information on the topic and works to build an online community to address leading issues.
Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Center
CIDRAP is tracking and analyzing the rapidly evolving novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The CIDRAP COVID-19 Resource Center provides a deep well of information for public health experts, business preparedness leaders, government officials, and the public.
Resilient Drug Supply Project
The Resilient Drug Supply Project focuses on the supply chains and global disruptions for the most critical drugs for life-saving and life-sustaining treatment. Outcomes of this research will improve the healthcare supply system's ability to maintain a steady and adequate supply of critical medicines and supplies worldwide.
CIDRAP Leadership Forum
Membership in the CIDRAP Leadership Forum (CLF) connects decisionmakers to intelligence they can trust when they need it most. The CLF is a high-value, highly responsive service offered by CIDRAP that ensures businesses and organizations have rapid access to critical intelligence on emerging infectious disease threats and public health issues. Members say CLF provides insight and analysis they cannot find easily elsewhere.
CLF members connect with Michael T. Osterholm, an international authority on emerging infectious diseases, and the comprehensive team of CIDRAP experts through special communications, conference calls, webinars, and special CLF events.
Past Initiatives
Ebola Vaccine Team B
Wellcome Trust and CIDRAP launched the Ebola vaccine Team B initiative in November 2014 to assist international efforts to develop in record time safe and effective vaccines against Ebola virus disease. The project includes 25 distinguished leaders in public health, medicine, bioethics, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and humanitarian relief. The experts provide a fresh perspective (a Team B analysis) of issues being addressed by international collaborators in the areas of funding, research, development, vaccine efficacy and effectiveness determination, licensure, manufacturing, and vaccination strategy (distribution and administration). To date, Team B has published its findings in the following reports:[citation needed]
"Completing the Development of Ebola Vaccines: Current Status, Remaining Challenges, and Recommendations"
"Plotting the Course of Ebola Vaccines: Challenges and Unanswered Questions"
"Recommendations for Accelerating Development of Ebola Vaccines: Report and Analysis"
"Fast-Track Development of Ebola Vaccines: Principles and Target Product Criteria"
BioWatch
CIDRAP has served as a partner in the federal BioWatch air-monitoring program. This program is responsible for the constant monitoring for potential bioterrorism-related agents in cities throughout the United States.[5] Through its contract with the Department of Homeland Security, CIDRAP provides support for the development of national outdoor and indoor guidance documents, a national epidemiology communications network, and a suite of related program and reference documents.[citation needed]
Minnesota Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (MCEIRS)
The Minnesota Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (MCEIRS), established by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and CIDRAP in April 2007, was one of six NIH-supported centers[6] in the United States. The activities of the center, including research and surveillance both domestically and abroad, were focused on the detection, epidemiology, and transmission of avian influenza (AI) viruses with pandemic potential. The primary goal of MCEIRS was to enhance the understanding of how AI viruses evolve, adapt, and spread among animal and human populations,[7] the center closed in April 2014.
Influenza training
The Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance has developed an online training portal that provides e-learning modules on topics related to avian influenza and influenza in general.[citation needed]
In December 2009 a grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation started the CIDRAP Comprehensive Influenza Vaccine Initiative. The primary goal of CCIVI was to review all aspects of 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza vaccine preparedness and response and to review the scientific and programmatic basis for the current seasonal influenza vaccine efforts. The final report, published October 15, 2012, is a review of more than 12,000 peer-reviewed publications, documents, transcripts and notes dating back to 1936 and interviews and follow up with 88 experts in influenza vaccine research, development, and use.[8]
Public Health Practices (PHP) was a curated compendium of tools, strategies, and downloadables created by US health agencies and partners to prepare for and respond to the health consequences of disasters and emergencies. The project was ended in December 2014.
Practitioners can still search the one-stop shop of real-world resources by hazard, strategy, partners, geography, groups being served, agency, tool, language, and key word. PHP encourages peer-to-peer exchange of practices by accepting submissions to the site, showcasing examples in theme-based email newsletters, and hosting social media channels for practitioners.
Public Health Practices features:
More than 400 practices addressing a wide range of hazards
Successful coalitions and details about what made them possible
Stories on how projects were created
Communication materials in 40 languages to download or adapt
A search tool that allows users to apply filters to narrow results as needed
A simple submissions process to encourage practitioners to share their work
Peer-to-peer information exchange via social media
Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents include bacteria, viruses, insects, fungi, and/or their toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in much the same way as in biological warfare. Further, modern agribusiness is vulnerable to anti-agricultural attacks by terrorists, and such attacks can seriously damage economy as well as consumer confidence. The latter destructive activity is called agrobioterrorism and is a subtype of agro-terrorism.
The National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) is part of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the agency of the Government of Canada that is responsible for public health, health emergency preparedness and response, and infectious and chronic disease control and prevention.
The State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR, also known as the Vector Institute, is a biological research center in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia. It has research facilities and capabilities for all levels of biological hazard, CDC levels 1–4. It is one of two official repositories for the now-eradicated smallpox virus, and was part of the system of laboratories known as the Biopreparat.
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads across a large region and infects a large proportion of the population. There have been six major influenza epidemics in the last 140 years, with the 1918 flu pandemic being the most severe; this is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 50–100 million people. The 2009 swine flu pandemic resulted in under 300,000 deaths and is considered relatively mild. These pandemics occur irregularly.
Michael Thomas Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is an agency of the European Union (EU) whose mission is to strengthen Europe's defences against infectious diseases. It covers a wide spectrum of activities, such as: surveillance, epidemic intelligence, response, scientific advice, microbiology, preparedness, public health training, international relations, health communication, and the scientific journal Eurosurveillance. The centre was established in 2004 and is headquartered in Solna, Sweden.
Under United States law, Biological select agents or toxins (BSATs)—or simply select agents for short—are bio-agents which have been declared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to have the "potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety". The agents are divided into (1) HHS select agents and toxins affecting humans; (2) USDA select agents and toxins affecting agriculture; and (3) overlap select agents and toxins affecting both.
Transmission and infection of H5N1 from infected avian sources to humans has been a concern since the first documented case of human infection in 1997, due to the global spread of H5N1 that constitutes a pandemic threat.
The Influenza Genome Sequencing Project (IGSP), initiated in early 2004, seeks to investigate influenza evolution by providing a public data set of complete influenza genome sequences from collections of isolates representing diverse species distributions.
The ICEID or International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases is a conference for public health professionals on the subject of emerging infectious diseases.
Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting.
OFFLU is the joint OIE-FAO global network of expertise on animal influenzas. OFFLU aims to reduce the negative impacts of animal influenza viruses by promoting effective collaboration between animal health experts and the human health sector. OFFLU analyzes and shares information and biological material to identify and reduce health threats early, and shares information about animal influenza viruses with the World Health Organization (WHO) to assist with the early preparation of human vaccines. It was established in 2005, initially to support the global effort to control H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)' is a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) office responsible for the procurement and development of medical countermeasures, principally against bioterrorism, including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats, as well as pandemic influenza and emerging diseases. BARDA was established in 2006 through the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) and reports to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The office manages Project BioShield, which funds the research, development and stockpiling of vaccines and treatments that the government could use during public health emergencies such as chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attacks.
Ali S. Khan is an American practicing physician and former Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHPR) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since July 2014, he has served as Dean of the College of Public Health and Retired Assistant Surgeon General at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Stephen S. Morse is an American epidemiologist, influenza researcher and specialist on emerging infectious diseases, who has served as an adviser on the epidemiology of infectious diseases and on improving disease early warning systems to numerous government and international organizations. As of 2016, he is Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. His seminal book Emerging Viruses (1993) was selected by American Scientist for its list of "100 Top Science Books of the 20th Century".
Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) was established in 2002 for the primary purpose of HIV vaccine development and building of vaccine testing capability in Uganda. It is one of the 5 international research sites established by the Department of Defense (DoD) United States HIV Research Program (MHRP), a program centered at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, Maryland. MUWRP's main facility is centrally located in Kampala, near the Makerere University College of Health Sciences where the MUWRP laboratory is located. The main facility includes the clinic, administrative, and data offices.
Sir Jeremy James Farrar is a British medical researcher who has served as Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization since 2023. He was previously the director of The Wellcome Trust from 2013 to 2023 and a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford.
Stephen C. Redd is a U.S. physician and rear admiral with the U.S. Public Health Service and an Assistant Surgeon General. With over 30 years of public health and executive leadership experience, Redd served as the Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previously, he was the Director of the CDC's Influenza Coordination Unit, where he served as the incident commander for the 2009-2010 H1N1 pandemic influenza response.
Jianhong Wu is a Canadian applied mathematician and the founding Director of the Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics at York University. He is also the inaugural Director of Y-EMERGE.
Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs is a non-fiction book by epidemiologist Michael T. Osterholm and writer Mark Olshaker, that explores public health emergencies including antimicrobial resistance, emerging infectious disease, and the threat of an influenza pandemic. It proposes a nine-point "battle plan for survival" for dealing with these threats, including solutions to antimicrobial drug resistance.
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