Jonas Korlach, CSO at PacBio
Brian Caveney, President and CMO at Labcorp
Chapters:
0:00 How is long read sequencing contributing to the surveillance effort
8:49 A global scale—launching a preparedness infrastructure
19:18 Public vs private
25:50 Are we better prepared for the next pandemic?
27:24 Are we getting ahead of the new variants?
Will there be a fourth surge of COVID here in the U.S.? Already that we’re asking the question and it’s not an inevitability is a good sign. It’s become a race between vaccination clinics and viral variants.
The U.S. was a bit slow to this race, but we are catching up. Viral surveillance has become a key part of any nation’s pandemic strategy. This past month, PacBio and Labcorp announced a partnership that brings the tool of long read sequencing to this effort.
Jonas Korlach, CSO at PacBio, and Brian Caveney, President and CMO at Labcorp, join us to discuss their joint surveillance work. Their partnerhsip is not only national but is putting in place what they call a “global pan-pathogen surveillance network."
Jonas compares the network to the kind of close surveillance that global weather systems have been doing for many years. Brian says that Labcorp has an international footprint. He's optimistic that those countries that have been viral hotspots around the world will be working together in close scientific collaboration aided by new laboratory tools to prevent the next pandemic.
Since this podcast was recorded, the Biden administration has announced huge investments in innovation and research as part of their new $2 trillion Jobs Plan. We can hope that there is money marked specifically for the pandemic preparedness infrastructure Jonas and Brian are calling for today and that some version of this plan passes.
