SCIENCE science.org
in the war on the China virus.” When Bright
appeared on 60 Minutes a few days later,
Trump lashed out at him again, tweeting
that he “fabricates stories,” “spews lies,” and
is “a creep.” Bright says unknown people
subsequently began to call his relatives
about his personal life, trying to dig up dirt
about boyfriends, even though he is openly
gay. “It was disgusting,” he says.
Bright’s fall from grace didn’t last long.
President-elect Joe Biden made him an
adviser on a COVID-19 transition team. In
August 2021, HHS settled the whistleblower
suit with Bright, agreeing to back pay and
damages for “emotional stress and reputa-
tional damage,” according to his lawyers.
They add that HHS has a separate, ongo-
ing investigation into his allegations about
contract improprieties and inappropriate
responses to the pandemic. (HHS would not
confirm or deny this.) And Bright is trying
again to head off pandemics, this time from
outside government.
PPI’S VAST OFFICE SPACE in Washing-
ton, D.C., isn’t just pandemic empty—it’s
startup empty. As Bright begins to fill its
cubicles with disease modelers, global
health specialists, political scientists,
epidemiologists, and health economists, he
recognizes that his vision for PPI also still
has many blanks to fill in—and knows he is
entering an increasingly crowded and well-
funded field. With backing from Germany,
WHO will supplement its long-standing
outbreak alert network with a hub in Ber-
lin to analyze the incoming data and better
plan responses. CDC is similarly launching
a new group to aid local U.S. officials fac-
ing a spreading pathogen. “No one can do
it all,” Bright says. “We have to now come to-
gether to decide how we divide and conquer
this ecosystem.”
His recipe—building trust, collecting and
sharing data, creating a reliable early warn-
ing system, and applying modern analytics—
is far from unique. But PPI should be able
to react more quickly to gathering threats
than other entities, says Manisha Bhinge, a
health economist and computer scientist on
the team. Organizations like WHO, she says,
“don’t have the space to be wrong or fail, so
they often take a lot of time,” Bhinge says.
“Our ability as a nonstate actor, and having
some degree of independence, is to comple-
ment them and be wrong occasionally.”
Dylan George, an infectious disease
modeler and a leader of CDC’s new cen-
ter, suggests PPI has another advan-
tage: more freedom than government or
quasi-governmental agencies like WHO to
quickly fund projects that, say, test waste-
water or scale up new diagnostics. “A little
bit of money early in an outbreak can have
an outsized impact,” George says.
PPI now receives data from 30 part-
ners that track diseases, including uni-
versities in several countries, the African
and U.S. CDCs, large hospital systems,
a livestock research institute in Kenya, a
genomics center in Nigeria, and a molecu-
lar biology group in India. In addition to
giving several of those partners a total of
$20 million in grants, PPI has invested
$4.5 million in a new South African center
that aims to strengthen genomic surveil-
lance of pathogens throughout that conti-
nent. “Today, health care providers, labs, and
health departments are the primary source
of information on new disease threats,”
says disease modeler Sam Scarpino, head
of PPI’s pathogen surveillance. “This tradi-
tional approach misses large swaths of the
population who do not have access to qual-
ity health care. It also means that the first
signs of an outbreak are detected weeks, if
not months, after the emergence.”
The next step is to make sense of the data,
Bright says. “What no one has ever done is
put together the new, brilliant architectural
system to connect all this disparate data to-
gether and analyze it the way a hedge fundmanager analyzes all sorts of different data
to understand where to invest,” Bright says.
“Yes, a lot of data are now being generated,
but I liken it to severed arteries: There is
just blood spurting everywhere.”
The ultimate challenge remains translat-
ing the improved surveillance into earlier
detection and better tracking. “After all the
billions of dollars that I have been instru-
mental in spending to make a better vac-
cine, a better drug, or a better diagnostic,
I’ve learned that none of that is effective if
we don’t have a global early warning system
that is agnostic of politics, without finan-
cial pressure, without someone waiting for
another government to share information,
without us waiting until it gets to our bor-
ders,” Bright says.
“It’s not just for governments and
policymakers,” he says. “How do we reach
my mother with a tool that can say, ‘It’s not
safe to go outside today,’ or ‘I need to take
extra precautions,’ or ‘I need to change
my behavior?’”
In August 2021, Bright’s mother was liv-
ing with a relative who tested positive for
SARS-CoV-2. She had received two doses of
a vaccine, but she was at high risk of severe
COVID-19, so she isolated herself at a dif-
ferent home. When she fell ill, Bright urged
her to get a coronavirus test, but her doctor
said it wasn’t necessary because she was vac-
cinated. But, he recalls, “She would call and
she could barely talk.”
On 17 August, his mother died of what
he is certain was COVID-19. “I’m heart-
broken beyond words that this pandemic
has now taken my mom,” Bright tweeted.
“Please get vaccinated, tested & please
wear a high quality mask (over mouth &
nose). I’m in so much pain from losing my
mother, trust me, I don’t want anyone else
to feel this pain.” jThis story was supported by a grant from
the NIHCM Foundation.NEW EFFORT LOCATION FUNDER
AMOUNT
(MILLIONS $ FOCUSPandemic Prevention
Institute
Rockefeller Foundation,
Washington, D.C.Rockefeller Foundation 150 Fill in gaps in global data collection
and sharing, speed sequencingCenter for Forecasting and
Outbreak Analytics
U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, Washington, D.C.U.S. government’s American Rescue Plan Up to 500 Help U.S. mayors and governors respond
to outbreaks with better data, analyticsWorld Health Organization
Hub for Pandemic and
Epidemic Intelligence
Robert Koch Institute and Charité
University Hospital in BerlinGermany 100 Cross-disciplinary effort to link
surveillance data, improve analyticsGlobal Pandemic Radar TBD U.K. government, Wellcome Trust, G-20 TBD Identify new COVID-19 variants, track
new diseases, create surveillance hubs
Global Pandemic Prevention
& Biodefense Center
Washington, D.C., area U.S. government, philanthropy, global coalitions Up to 2500 Initially make monoclonal antibodies
against top 100 pathogensPandemic preventers multiply
COVID-19 has illustrated the many problems the world has in spotting and responding to a global outbreak of a killer pathogen.
A variety of new initiatives are forming to reduce the odds that history will repeat itself.
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