Prestigious NSF award to advance UK research to track emerging pathogens

By Lindsay Travis

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 3, 2024) — We all have lived through a pandemic, its uncertainties, challenges, losses and scientific breakthroughs. A prestigious award from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is advancing the work of a team of researchers at the University of Kentucky to help society be better prepared for potential future pandemics.

Scott Berry, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the UK Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, is the principal investigator of the six-year cooperative agreement projected to be nearly $18 million.

It’s part of NSF’s Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP) program, which was initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic to address both the immediate threat as well as the broad range of diseases that drastically impact life on Earth.

In this second phase of the program, the awards establish centers comprised of multidisciplinary research teams to tackle this challenge.

UK is one of four institutions supported with this award. Its new center, named the NSF Pandemic Environmental Surveillance Center for Assessing Pathogen Emergence (NSF ESCAPE), will focus on environmental surveillance by combining social science, engineering, bioinformatics and risk modeling.

“The prevention of a pandemic is a complex process that requires a multidisciplinary set of skills,” said Berry. “People often think about doctors and nurses, but it’s really so much more than that. It’s public health officials, utility operators, basic scientists, engineers, policymakers — an entire community of problem solvers.”

NSF ESCAPE expands this team’s previous work using wastewater testing to show the first signs of a disease outbreak in a community. Berry invented a new technology called exclusion-based sample preparation to create a fast and simple way to test samples.

With the help of engineering students, Berry and his team also created a mobile lab to take wastewater testing to rural Kentucky.

“Appalachia is one of the most underserved regions of the United States, and we really wanted to bring cutting-edge technology out there,” said Berry. “That mission is reflected in our partnerships on this project. While we develop these technologies with low resource communities in mind, it’s really applicable to all our communities — rural and urban.”  

Berry is leading the seven-year effort along with co-principal investigators Matthew Scotch, Ph.D., associate dean and professor in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University; James Keck, Ph.D., a research physician at the University of Alaska Anchorage and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium; and Sarah Olson, Ph.D., the associate director of epidemiology for the Wildlife Conservation Society Health Program.

“Our team is made up of many different groups across a huge geographical distance, as well as a diversity of different skills,” said Berry. “We’re hoping to continue to develop these tools that allow us to push environmental surveillance into the farthest reaches of the world.

“That includes expansion of our surveillance to animals. Pathogens are known to jump between animals and humans, and so we can’t just limit our analysis to humans alone. We have to really look at everything.”

Berry and the NSF ESCAPE team will also work with Sahar Alameh, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Education, to develop curricula for students to tackle misinformation about diseases, pandemics and viruses. Alameh’s research focuses on helping students better understand scientific phenomena and supporting teachers in that work.

Researchers will also offer training for people working in public health to better understand what this new type of data means and how they can use it to help the health of their communities.

“Research on emerging infectious diseases is a critical investment in our future, and it necessitates a collaborative approach that spans multiple disciplines and sectors and incorporates the newest tools and technology,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “By bringing together experts in biology, computer science and artificial intelligence, engineering and more, these investments are well positioned to predict, prevent and respond to potential pandemics across all forms of life, thus safeguarding the health, economic stability and security of our nation.”

This project is part of a series of NSF-funded work totaling $72 million. The network of team-based centers will accelerate fundamental research and development activities to develop methods and tools that will help predict and mitigate future pandemics, whether they arise in animals, plants or humans.

Learn more about the NSF’s PIPP program online.

The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy recently invited Berry and his team to a roundtable focused on emerging technologies for preventing health emergencies. Wastewater surveillance for outbreak early warning was one of the four types of broad technology spotlighted in the discussions.

Learn more about Berry’s work early on in the pandemic to help the UK campus monitor the prevalence of COVID. The team would expand that project to better serve communities with a mobile testing lab to take to nursing homes and low-resource areas of Kentucky.  

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 2412446. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Early in the pandemic, Scott Berry and his team collected and tested wastewater samples on campus to determine the prevalence of COVID. Pete Comparoni | UK Photo

As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.   

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