Epidemiology: Disease Detectives
World Health Organization
The WHO tries to influence health and challege new boundaries by trying to address health objectives and strategic/operational needs.
Their six main ponts are:
1. Promoting Developement -”Health development is directed by the ethical principle of equity.”
2. Fostering health security -”Shared vulnerability to health security threats demands collective action” -The WHO, overall, tries to increase the world’s ability to defend itself against outbreaks.
3. Strengthening health systems-”Health systems in many parts of the wolrd are unable to do so, making the strengthening of health systems in a high priority for WHO.”
4. Harnessing Research, informatin and evidence- “Evidence provides the foundation for setting priorities.”
5. Enhancing Partnerships-The WHO works with many international agencies, donor, civil society, and private sectors in order to create basic health guidelines and practices.
6. Improving performance
Innovators
The main mission of CDC is to help sponsor, facilitate, and coordinate activities and programs that will help promote health. This is known as the "One Health Office Mission Statement".
"Serves as the agency focal point and provides the programmatic home for One Health Activities;Builds and organizes a portfolio of One Health activities, plans, and accomplishments and leads the efforts to promote and accomplish the activities through NCEZID and CDC programs and partnerships;Builds partnerships and facilitates collaboration both within and external to CDC;Manages and allocates NCEZID extra-budgetary resources from DOS/USAID, DOD/BTEP, NCEH/Climate Change, and others as appropriate;Facilitates the exchange of information and enhances communication across disciplines by sponsoring visiting scientists and fellows, lectures, and meetings." [Citation]
Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
University of Columbia
The University of Columbia in New York has developed an mChip that has proved to be nearly 100 percent correcting in testing for HIV.
Their main goal is "to make a large class of diagnostic tests accessible to patients in any setting in the world, rather than forcing them to go to a clinic to draw blood and then wait days for their results". This would ultimately improve the efficiency in both time and cost in the diagnosis process.
Johnathan Eisen
Johnathan Eisen is currently working on many different projects, but one of his most important in regards to epidemiology is the Genomic Encyclopedia for Bacteria and Archaea.
The goal is to: "The long-term goal of the GEBA project would be to generate reference genomes for every major and minor group of bacteria and archaea. This could represent something on the order of 5,000 genomes...This pilot project will allow JGI to determine which issues will require attention and how best to proceed with the larger project". [Citation]