Tonight, I watched the recording of the Showcase Biosurveillance session at the Nanopore Community Meeting 2024. Ana Maria Niewiadomska, Segment Market Manager for Public Health with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, spoke to experts. Alex Kneubehl from Baylor College of Medicine spoke about his work on public health-related projects. Kneubehl and team have trained public health scientists from Belize and even participated in citizen science tick identification projects. Kamil Khanipov from The University of Texas Medical Branch described their biosurveillance aerosol project. Khanipov and team support monitoring efforts. Laura Kamenetzky from CONICET in Argentina receives samples for a variety of surveillance efforts in the country. The panelists described their efforts to increase surveillance efforts and train others. Several explained how the devices can increase the accessibility of sequencing. Getting the materials to sites was the main challenge. Khanipov spoke about citizen scientists. The panelists emphasized the importance of surveillance efforts and funding initiatives to build capacity.
