MTU One of Four State Universities to Receive $18.5M in Federal Funding to Expand Infectious Disease Research

Michigan Tech will receive $four.three million to assistance the state of Michigan increase sequencing
for COVID-19 and other infectious health conditions.

The Michigan Department of Wellbeing and Human Products and services (MDHHS) declared currently that four Michigan universities will receive $18.five million in federal funds more than
the up coming two years to accumulate and assess genomic info to address emerging infectious
ailment threats and enrich the state’s capability to answer to people threats.

Michigan Technological College, Michigan Point out College, the College of Michigan
and Wayne Point out College will use the funding to boost sequencing ability in
the state — setting up with SARS-CoV-two and then growing to other infectious ailment
threats with likely for wide local community spread.

Funding for the Michigan Sequencing Academic Partnership for Community Wellbeing Innovation
and Reaction (MI-SAPPHIRE) is by a Facilities for Disorder Manage and Prevention
(CDC) Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity grant MDHHS obtained. MI-SAPPHIRE pursuits
will involve sequence technology and examination, this sort of as sample collection and sequencing
info processing, storage and sharing and info interpretation and analytics.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the worth and need to have for genomic sequencing, surveillance and epidemiology ability both of those globally and appropriate listed here in Michigan,”
said Elizabeth Hertel, MDHHS director. “The MDHHS Bureau of Laboratories has promptly
expanded its initiatives to establish COVID-19 variants given that the start off of the pandemic
to aid general public wellness actions. MI-SAPPHIRE will allow our state to increase sequencing
and examination ability and the variety of pathogens that undertake regime sequencing,
and be certain we are sampling diverse geographic places across the state.”

“Michigan Tech proceeds to be a leader in the Higher Peninsula for supplying local community
sources throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Caryn Heldt, the James and Lorna Mack Endowed Chair of Mobile and Molecular Engineering at
Tech and the director of the University’s Wellbeing Study Institute. “For 20 months, the College supplied local community and campus tests for the virus.
Now, with the aid from the state and federal government, we will build the infrastructure
to supply sequencing ability for the state wellness companies.

“While we will start off with SARS-CoV-two sequencing, the ability we are building will
then be made use of to sequence other pathogens, ranging from drug-resistant gonorrhea to
zoonotic health conditions, like avian influenza,” Heldt said. “Collectively, Michigan Tech
has knowledge in genomic sequencing, zoonotic health conditions and the computational infrastructure
essential to retailer, catalog and assess massive genomic datasets. Incorporate this knowledge
with the relationships we have with neighborhood suppliers and the Western Higher Peninsula
Wellbeing Department, and we are psyched to assistance the state scale their ability and continue on
to aid our local community in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and in addressing long term
wellness threats.”

Michigan Tech’s investigate group features Heldt, her co-principal investigators Dukka KC and Hairong Wei, and senior researchers Kristin Brzeski, Dude Hembroff, Kelly Kamm, Stephen Techtmann and Kui Zhang.

Michigan Technological College is a general public investigate university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is dwelling to additional than 7,000 college students from 55 nations around the world about the earth. Constantly rated between the best universities in the state for return on investment, the College presents additional than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree courses in science and engineering, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, wellness professions, humanities, arithmetic, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is positioned just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan’s Higher Peninsula, featuring 12 months-spherical alternatives for outside experience.