By Rob Mitchum // January 23, 2015
With the ebola scare of last year subsiding, scientists are now looking for ways to prevent or slow the next outbreak of the deadly virus. While medical researchers seek an effective, safe, and affordable treatment for the disease and public health experts look to improve reporting and quarantine procedures, another group of scientists seeks to find technological approaches to containing and eradicating ebola.
CI Senior Fellow and Faculty Andrey Rzhetsky was among the researchers who gathered in Cairo, Egypt for last month’s Technology 4 Ebola conference, co-organized by the Egyptian government and Microsoft. At ScienceLife, writer Matt Wood talked to Rzhetsky about the mission of the meeting and how he may contribute as an expert on text-mining medical literature and data.
While [Rzhetsky] is quick to point out that he is not an expert on Ebola or other infectious diseases, the type of work he does analyzing large-scale data sets could help build better epidemiological models and guide the public health response before an outbreak turns into a crisis.
“Ideally we would better understand where these outbreaks happen, why they happen, and learn to predict and warn in advance so we could have those teams on the ground before something horrible happens,” he said.
For more on Rzhetsky’s research, visit the Conte Center for Computational Neuropsychiatric Genomics website.