UC San Diego Bioengineer Joins NSF Center for Pandemic Insights

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University of California San Diego bioengineering professor Kiana Aran has been selected to join the NSF Center for Pandemic Insights (NSF CPI), which is housed at UC Davis.

The Center focuses on understanding pandemic threats before they spill over into human populations. To do this, Center researchers are working together to develop what they believe are the world’s most advanced platforms attempted to date for characterizing the pre-emergence phases of pandemics.

Developing systems to investigate pandemics involves the creation and integration of a series of advances, including:

• Early-warning biosensing systems
• Field-deployable detection tools
• AI-driven predictive models
• Wildlife and ecosystem pathogen monitoring networks

Professor Aran has been brought into the project in order to leverage her expertise in microelectronics-integrated biosensing. This expertise is essential for scalable, ultra-sensitive, real-time detection of future pandemics threats months or even years in advance of a spillover event.

“My work in biosensors, multi-omics electronic readouts, and real-time molecular monitoring fills an important technological need in the CPI consortium,” said Aran. “My role within CPI will focus on integrating microelectronics and biosensor technologies into the center’s broader ecological, computational, and public health surveillance frameworks. I will be working closely with CPI’s teams across ecology, environmental science, wildlife disease, computational modeling, and One Health partnerships.”

UC San Diego and CPI

UC San Diego has been involved in CPI from the start, through the work of a team led by UC electrical engineering professor Patrick Mercier.

At UC San Diego, Mercier is involved in the development of advanced sensor networks for real-time remote detection of pathogens and key events in disease outbreaks. In particular, his team is developing ultra- low-power wireless sensing and wireless infrastructure to support sensor networks in field locations with little to no cellular coverage.>

Center for Pandemic Insights Team

The Center for Pandemic Insights (CPI) is a multidisciplinary collaboration involving experts from UC Davis, UC San Diego, USC, UCLA, UCSC, Colorado State, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, along with several community partners.

“We’ve very fortunate to have assembled a team of top experts that span the breadth of disciplinary expertise necessary to fundamentally advance our ability to investigate the pre-emergence phase of pandemics,” said Christine K. Johnson, Director of NSF CPI and a professor of epidemiology and ecosystem health at UC Davis. “Professors Aran and Mercier at UCSD bring highly unique expertise urgently needed for the detection of emerging zoonotic viruses.”

The Center, led by UC Davis, is one of four NSF Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP) Centers.

Related links

NSF Announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/news/new-nsf-centers-will-take-multidisciplinary
UC Davis center launch news release
Center for Pandemic Insights (CPI) website