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1. From Protein to Pandemic: The Transdisciplinary Approach Needed to Prevent Spillover and the Next Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.3390/v13071298  

   Plowright, Raina K.; Hudson, Peter J. (July 2021, Viruses)

   null (Ed.)

   Pandemics are a consequence of a series of processes that span scales from viral biology at 10−9 m to global transmission at 106 m. The pathogen passes from one host species to another through a sequence of events that starts with an infected reservoir host and entails interspecific contact, innate immune responses, receptor protein structure within the potential host, and the global spread of the novel pathogen through the naive host population. Each event presents a potential barrier to the onward passage of the virus and should be characterized with an integrated transdisciplinary approach. Epidemic control is based on the prevention of exposure, infection, and disease. However, the ultimate pandemic prevention is prevention of the spillover event itself. Here, we focus on the potential for preventing the spillover of henipaviruses, a group of viruses derived from bats that frequently cross species barriers, incur high human mortality, and are transmitted among humans via stuttering chains. We outline the transdisciplinary approach needed to prevent the spillover process and, therefore, future pandemics. 

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2. US-Serbia and West Balkan Data Science Workshop

   Obradovic, Zoran (January 2020, NSF Workshop Reports)

   The project mission was to organize a workshop aimed to explore how the US data science community can cooperate with and benefit from collaborations with partners in Serbia and the West Balkan region. The scope included fundamental data science methods and high-impact applications related to big data processing, security and privacy in critical infrastructures, biomedical informatics, and computational archeology. The proposed workshop facilitated closing the gap between data science research in the US and Serbia and the region and brought together data scientists with researchers from disciplines that until recently had little exposure to data science methods, potentially enabling collaborative breakthroughs in those scientific fields. A large fraction of participants from both sides were early career researchers including advanced level graduate students, postdoctoral research associates, and assistant/associate professors within 10 years of obtaining their Ph.D. The participants included a large fraction of female and minority scientists. The workshop objective was achieved by including the following inter-related objectives: (1) Establishing new multidisciplinary international collaborations between data science, mathematics, and sciences that generate big data and require advanced methods; (2) Reinforcing collaboration mechanisms between the NSF and Serbia’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development and organize joint research projects; and (3) Widening the impact of the workshop, by involving researchers and stakeholders from the West Balkan region. The workshop consisted of four tracks, each co-chaired by 3 investigators from the US, Serbia and another West Balkan country. Tangible outcomes from the workshop include a report describing workshop activities for each of four tracks and a proposal recommending research collaboration areas of interest for all parties and determining collaboration mechanisms and programs to facilitate collaboration. 

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3. Future Directions of the Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) Program - CSSI 2019 Workshop Report

   Arora, Ritu; Li, Xiaosong; Hurwitz, Bonnie; Fay, Daniel; Panda, D.K.; Valeev, Edward; Wang, Shaowen; Moore, Shirley; Chandrasekaran, Sunita; Cao, Ting; et al (April 2020, CSSI 2019 Workshop)

   The CSSI 2019 workshop was held on October 28-29, 2019, in Austin, Texas. The main objectives of this workshop were to (1) understand the impact of the CSSI program on the community over the last 9 years, (2) engage workshop participants in identifying gaps and opportunities in the current CSSI landscape, (3) gather ideas on the cyberinfrastructure needs and expectations of the community with respect to the CSSI program, and (4) prepare a report summarizing the feedback gathered from the community that can inform the future solicitations of the CSSI program. The workshop participants included a diverse mix of researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and national laboratories. The participants belonged to diverse domains such as quantum physics, computational biology, High Performance Computing (HPC), and library science. Almost 50% participants were from computer science domain and roughly 50% were from non-computer science domains. As per the self-reported statistics, roughly 27% of the participants were from the different underrepresented groups as defined by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The workshop brought together different stakeholders interested in provisioning sustainable cyberinfrastructure that can power discoveries impacting the various fields of science and technology and maintaining the nation's competitiveness in the areas such as scientific software, HPC, networking, cybersecurity, and data/information science. The workshop served as a venue for gathering the community-feedback on the current state of the CSSI program and its future directions. Before they arrived at the workshop, the participants were encouraged to take an online survey on the challenges that they face in using the current cyberinfrastructure and the importance of the CSSI program in enabling cutting-edge research. The workshop included 16 brain-storming sessions of one hour each. Additionally, the workshop program included 16 lightning talks and an extempore session. The information collected from the survey, brainstorming sessions, lightning talks, and the extempore session are summarized in this report and can potentially be useful for the NSF in formulating the future CSSI solicitations. The workshop fostered an environment in which the participants were encouraged to identify gaps and opportunities in the current cyberinfrastructure landscape, and develop thoughts for proposing new projects. 

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4. Ecological countermeasures to prevent pathogen spillover and subsequent pandemics

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46151-9  

   Plowright, Raina K.; Ahmed, Aliyu N.; Coulson, Tim; Crowther, Thomas W.; Ejotre, Imran; Faust, Christina L.; Frick, Winifred F.; Hudson, Peter J.; Kingston, Tigga; Nameer, P. O.; et al (March 2024, Nature Communications)

   Abstract Substantial global attention is focused on how to reduce the risk of future pandemics. Reducing this risk requires investment in prevention, preparedness, and response. Although preparedness and response have received significant focus, prevention, especially the prevention of zoonotic spillover, remains largely absent from global conversations. This oversight is due in part to the lack of a clear definition of prevention and lack of guidance on how to achieve it. To address this gap, we elucidate the mechanisms linking environmental change and zoonotic spillover using spillover of viruses from bats as a case study. We identify ecological interventions that can disrupt these spillover mechanisms and propose policy frameworks for their implementation. Recognizing that pandemics originate in ecological systems, we advocate for integrating ecological approaches alongside biomedical approaches in a comprehensive and balanced pandemic prevention strategy. 

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5. Summary Report: 4th Annual Workshop on Resilient Supply of Critical Minerals, 7-8 August 2024, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri, USA

   Locmelis, M; Clark, S; Swain, R (September 2024, Missouri S&T)

   On August 7-8, 2024, the Thomas J. O’Keefe Institute for Sustainable Supply of Strategic Minerals at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) hosted the fourth annual workshop on ‘Resilient Supply of Critical Minerals’. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was attended by 212 participants. 143 participants attended the workshop in-person in the Havener Center on the Missouri S&T campus in Rolla, Missouri, USA. Another 69 participants attended online via Zoom. Twenty participants (including 12 students and 4 early career researchers) received travel support through the NSF grant to attend the conference in Rolla. Out of the workshop 212 participants, 199 stated their sectors of employment during registration showing that 88 participants were from academia (34 students), 58 from the private sector and 53 from government agencies. The workshop was followed by a post-workshop field trip to US Strategic Minerals (formerly Missouri Cobalt) in southeast Missouri that was attended by 18 workshop participants from academia (n=11; including 4 students) and the private sector (n=7). Four topical sessions were covered during the workshop: A. The Critical Mineral Potential of the USA: Evaluation of existing, and exploration for new resources. B. Critical Minerals Workforce Development: How to grow the US critical minerals workforce. C. Critical Mineral Processing and Recycling: Maximizing critical mineral recovery from existing production streams. D. Critical Mineral Policy and Supply Chain Economics: Reshoring critical mineral production. The topical sessions were composed of two keynote lectures and complemented by oral and poster presentations by the workshop participants, as well as a 30-minute open discussion at the end of each topical session. Breakout sessions that concluded each day discussed: • Can mining lead the new materials future? • Critical minerals research: where to go from here? • Should the Bureau of Mines be restored? Discussions during the workshop highlighted, for example, that: (i) Mining companies need to better address downstream needs and develop company cultures inclusive of younger generations; (ii) Although funding opportunities over the past year’s started to make a difference for critical minerals supply chain resilience, additional funding that is aimed at strengthening academia – private sector partnerships as well as international collaborations is needed to ensure a long-term impact; (iii) The majority of participants would welcome the reestablishment of the Bureau of Mines, although no consensus was reached on its potential responsibilities. This workshop report provides a detailed summary of the workshop demographics and discussions. 

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