CDC拨款230万用于开发抵御感染性疾病的新一代测序技术及生物信息学技术

  上周，美国CDC宣布他们将在2016财年上拨款230万美元用于支持新一代测序技术及生物信息学技术的开发，旨在帮助改善美国感染性疾病疫情爆发的快速先进的检测诊断。
  这项资助将通过流行病学及实验室能力的合作协议来进行分配，这项合作协议的任务就是帮助国家和社区解决那些已知和新发现的传染病。
  据CDC生物信息学高级顾问Duncan MacCannell表示，特别是来自CDC先进分子诊断的资金，已经在2013年年底已经投入了1.5亿美元进行了一项为期5年的研究计划，通过将新一代测序和生物信息学技术加入到传统的流行病学研究上，用来支持上述合作协议的研究目的。
  MacCannell表示，去年我们已经通过合作协议投入了一部分资金获得了一些研究数据，并且也投资了核心的测序和计算机基础设施；加之这次投入的230万美元，CDC将会更好地在美国推动这些技术的发展来使其更加快速地对疾病爆发进行鉴别并且快速做出应对策略。

  在这项230万资助的研究计划中其中研究者的一个研究目的就是利用先进的分子诊断检测技术来帮助研究食源性和健康相关的病原体、病原体耐药性、流感、肝炎病毒及肺结核。在接下来的几年里CDC希望可以配置更多的资金在美国更多的地区开展并支持额外的先进分子检测计划。
  最后研究者表示，目前我们需要确定先进的分子检测计划可以持续扩大，而且未来可以更加持续强劲地发展，我们相信该计划将会随着时间的推移逐渐加快发展。（转化医学网360zhyx.com）
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CDC Earmarks $2.3M for NGS, Bioinformatic Approaches to Combat Infectious Disease

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that it has earmarked roughly $2.3 million in fiscal 2016 to support the rollout of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatics technologies for the advanced detection of infectious disease outbreaks in select US states.

The funding is being allocated through the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement (ELC), which is tasked with helping states and communities address known and emerging infectious diseases.

According to Duncan MacCannell, senior advisor for bioinformatics at the CDC, the money specifically comes from the CDC's Advanced Molecular Detection (AMD) initiative, a five-year, $150 million effort kicked off in late 2013 to bolster the ELC's mission by joining traditional epidemiology with NGS and bioinformatics.

"Last year, we put out some money through ELC … [for the AMD program to] get a lot of the pieces we need at the CDC in place and invest in core [sequencing and computing] infrastructure," he said. With the $2.3 million, the CDC is "starting to push these technologies out to the states" to enable them to more quickly identify and respond to disease outbreaks.

Among the programs supported by the $2.3 million are ones that aim to use AMD technologies to address food-borne and healthcare-associated pathogens, antimicrobial resistance, influenza, hepatitis viruses, and tuberculosis.

In the coming years, the CDC is expected to allocate additional funding to support additional AMD projects in a greater number of states, MacCannell said.

"We need to make sure [AMD] is going to scale up … in a way that is robust and sustainable," he said. "So it will pick up steam over the course of time."