PIPP Phase II: Environmental Surveillance for Assessing Pathogen Emergence (ESCAPE)

The goal of the Pandemic Environmental Surveillance Center for Assessing Pathogen Emergence (Pandemic ESCAPE) is the timely detection of emergent pathogens across a variety of settings through cost-effective and easy-to-implement environmental surveillance (ES). ES uses environmental samples, to discover and monitor pathogens. Pandemic ESCAPE will advance ES technology, data interpretation, and adoption to promote its widespread deployment across the United States. Pandemic ESCAPE will adopt multiple strategies to tackle this challenge. These include research and engineering to design portable and easy-to-use ES devices, development of new methods for ES and genome sequencing, modeling of disease transmission using ES data, co-production of ES knowledge through community partnerships and participatory science, and engagement through public outreach and education activities. The Center will work closely with public health experts and the private sector to ensure that its solutions are practical and can be easily integrated into existing infrastructure. The long-term strategic goals of Pandemic ESCAPE are to 1) Create simplified tools to advance environmental surveillance (ES) pathogen monitoring and prediction capabilities; 2) Train the next generation of scientists in ES; 3) Accelerate the adoption of ES as a pandemic prevention tool for everyone; 4) Communicate ES data effectively, efficiently, and inclusively to support knowledge to action; 5) Empower communities to build local ES capacity; 6) Advocate for pathogen detection and response strategies that include ES. Through collaboration with partners in low resource communities, the Pandemic ESCAPE team will develop the necessary tools to grow an extensive ES network that can be used to monitor for pathogens. Achieving these long-term goals will have a transformative impact on how communities identify, monitor, and mitigate the impact of emerging pathogens. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.