301 - AI Driven Surveillance and Metagenomics for Modeling and Predicting Mosquito-Borne Diseases

COVID-19 and more recently malaria, have acutely demonstrated the immediate need for new systems, innovations, and partnerships to better predict biothreats. With this purpose in mind Harris County Mosquito & Vector Control (MVC) has joined with Microsoft Research and other Academic partners to integrate an AI powered biological sensing network into their public health infrastructure. In addition to deploying novel AI powered Biological Weather Stations (BWS), MVC also has established the tools and infrastructure to genomically sequence samples collected by the BWS and rapidly analyze them for pathogens. Using one of the most advanced genomics AI developed at Microsoft Research, this system provides MVC with the tools for early detection and precise prediction of biological threats. A number of these BWS (mosquito smart traps) are already deployed around the county to evaluate their capabilities in mosquito population monitoring and collection, more devices arriving soon. This novel real-time pathogen sensing network aim to exploit mosquito vectors as sentinels of human and animal diseases, while monitoring them as they move through the environment to build innovative predictive models that can alert public health entities prior to major disease associated events, including outbreaks and pandemics.