Under the leadership of UC San Diego, Scripps Research is partnering with several institutions to bolster national preparedness for respiratory viruses. UC San Diego (the primary award recipient) has been awarded a $5.7 million cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Scripps Research and its partners will join the CDC’s Community and Household Acute Respiratory Illness Monitoring (CHARM) Network: a five-year initiative aimed at generating insights into the transmission and impact of respiratory illnesses.
At UC San Diego and Scripps Research, the cooperative agreement supports one of the CHARM Network’s three sites: PREVENT (Preparedness through Respiratory Virus Epidemiology and Community Engagement). PREVENT is spearheaded by UC San Diego, and in addition to the Andersen Lab at Scripps Research, includes investigators at San Ysidro Health and The Global Action Research Center.
“The CHARM Network is at the heart of a national infrastructure to monitor and prepare for epidemic and pandemic-prone respiratory illnesses, such as influenza viruses and coronaviruses,” says co-principal investigator Kristian Andersen, PhD, a professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, where he’s also the director of Infectious Disease Genomics at the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
The Andersen Lab will serve as the CHARM Network’s central data hub, harmonizing data from multiple centers across the U.S.
Karthik Gangavarapu, PhD, an institute investigator at Scripps Research—where he leads PREVENT data analytics and software development with the Andersen Lab—emphasizes the initiative’s dual purpose.
“Our goal is to make data not only available but useful to public health officials,” he says. “By improving our ability to track and analyze respiratory viruses, we’re helping communities stay a step ahead.”
The CHARM Network consists of three types of study populations: longitudinal groups to monitor respiratory illness activity in the community over time, immunological assessment groups to analyze immune responses, and household transmission groups to examine viral spread within households. Scripps Research’s data hub will integrate data from these groups, transforming raw data into actionable insights to guide research and public health policy.
PREVENT is expected to support the enrollment and monitoring of approximately 2,000 individuals in the San Diego region. Data from all the CHARM sites will be managed and synthesized at the joint Scripps Research/UC San Diego data hub. Scripps Research will also support efforts to make its findings accessible to public health stakeholders, enhancing decision-making at national and local levels.
Beyond the immediate focus on pandemic preparedness, the PREVENT initiative is part of Scripps Research’s larger commitment to addressing infectious diseases in general.
“While pandemic response is crucial, our work encompasses a broader mission to monitor and manage pathogens,” says Andersen. “From surveillance and detection to drug and vaccine development, we’re building infrastructures to strengthen public health responses not only for potential pandemics but also for ongoing challenges posed by viruses like RSV, SARS-CoV-2 and influenza.”
