Despite the extraordinary advances in countermeasures development such as therapeutics and vaccines against human pathogens, persistent and emerging infectious disease agents pose a major threat to global public health. The ease of international travel and trade, increased density of human population, and global interdependence, along with drastic changes in climate and agricultural practices have added some extra layers of complexity to the containment of infectious diseases. Among other infectious agents, HIV, H1N1 influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the most recent novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) have taken a heavy toll on global health and economic stability leading to increased global morbidity and mortality, as well as impeding travel, business, and everyday life activities.
A response to these threats requires detection of emerging pathogens, effective diagnosis strategies, surveillance, measures to prevent and control infectious diseases and lastly, treatment and clinical care for the affected patients. While historically we have relied on traditional response systems, they have proven to be too slow, low-tech, or too limited in scope to prevent local outbreaks or epidemics to become global pandemics. Therefore, in the light of nowaday’s emergencies, novel approaches, methods, and technologies that could improve the speed, accuracy, scalability, and reach of the response are necessary.
In this Research Topic, we aim to explore the latest concepts, techniques, and technologies that could help to predict, diagnose, prevent or cure current and future infectious diseases threats.
We welcome submissions of Original Research, Review, and Mini-Review encompassing basic science, translational and public health research that focus on but are not limited to:
• New tools and methods (including artificial intelligence) for rapid identification of pathogens and accurate detection and monitoring of infectious disease activity.
• Novel methods for regional and global infectious disease surveillance such as web-based tools.
• Advances in epidemic modeling using artificial intelligence aimed to predict and prevent future infectious diseases threats.
• New molecular simulation or machine learning-enabled drug design approaches to rapidly identify drugs that could be repurposed to combat emerging infectious diseases.
• In vitro technologies, including but not limited to organoids and organs-on-chips, supporting a selection of the right type of drug to administer to an infected individual (personalized medicine) or enabling fast-tracking therapeutics development through the elimination of animal testing
Despite the extraordinary advances in countermeasures development such as therapeutics and vaccines against human pathogens, persistent and emerging infectious disease agents pose a major threat to global public health. The ease of international travel and trade, increased density of human population, and global interdependence, along with drastic changes in climate and agricultural practices have added some extra layers of complexity to the containment of infectious diseases. Among other infectious agents, HIV, H1N1 influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the most recent novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) have taken a heavy toll on global health and economic stability leading to increased global morbidity and mortality, as well as impeding travel, business, and everyday life activities.
A response to these threats requires detection of emerging pathogens, effective diagnosis strategies, surveillance, measures to prevent and control infectious diseases and lastly, treatment and clinical care for the affected patients. While historically we have relied on traditional response systems, they have proven to be too slow, low-tech, or too limited in scope to prevent local outbreaks or epidemics to become global pandemics. Therefore, in the light of nowaday’s emergencies, novel approaches, methods, and technologies that could improve the speed, accuracy, scalability, and reach of the response are necessary.
In this Research Topic, we aim to explore the latest concepts, techniques, and technologies that could help to predict, diagnose, prevent or cure current and future infectious diseases threats.
We welcome submissions of Original Research, Review, and Mini-Review encompassing basic science, translational and public health research that focus on but are not limited to:
• New tools and methods (including artificial intelligence) for rapid identification of pathogens and accurate detection and monitoring of infectious disease activity.
• Novel methods for regional and global infectious disease surveillance such as web-based tools.
• Advances in epidemic modeling using artificial intelligence aimed to predict and prevent future infectious diseases threats.
• New molecular simulation or machine learning-enabled drug design approaches to rapidly identify drugs that could be repurposed to combat emerging infectious diseases.
• In vitro technologies, including but not limited to organoids and organs-on-chips, supporting a selection of the right type of drug to administer to an infected individual (personalized medicine) or enabling fast-tracking therapeutics development through the elimination of animal testing
