The IQT Podcast

Synthetic Biology: A Core Capability for Biosecurity

B.Next's Dr. Kevin O'Connell is joined by Jason Kelly, Founder of Ginkgo Bioworks, an In-Q-Tel portfolio company using the most advanced technology on the planet—biology—to grow better products. Learn more about their platform that programs cells, and how they leverage this capability to expand biosecurity and pandemic response.

Learn more at ginkgobioworks.com. 

Navigating Available Testing for COVID-19 - Introducing the IQT Testing Database

With an abundance of information available on COVID-19 testing, where should one even begin? B.Next's Dr. Kevin O'Connell is joined by In-Q-Tel's Tommy Jones and Chenny Zhang to explore diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Now that various COVID-19 tests are available, it's important to determine which tests are compatible with each use case, where these tests may be taken, and how well each of the various tests perform. Learn more about the database IQT constructed to help people better navigate this testing world. 

For more information, visit covidtestdb.com.

Building Blocks for Precise Location Data and Powerful Developer Tools, with Mapbox’s Mikel Maron

In the final episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting series, Drs. Dylan George and Caitlin Rivers are joined by Mikel Maron, Community Team Lead at Mapbox, a company offering location data platform for mobile and web applications. The rise in ubiquity of mobile devices has enabled the power of location-based tools. This episode explores how these tools can help us better understand and combat COVID-19.

References:

• mapbox.com
• Humanitarian OpenStreetMap

How Technology is Augmenting Public Health, with OmniSci’s Todd Mostak

In this episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting series, Todd Mostak, CEO and Founder of OmniSci, an In-Q-Tel portfolio company focused on massively accelerated analytics and data science, joins Dr. Dylan George as they discuss the power of the company’s platform to understand patterns in movement and the spread of COVID-19, and its use in contact tracing and hot spot analysis.  

References:

• OmniSci’s COVID-19 Demo

Visualizing Data During a Pandemic, with Plotly’s Nicolas Kruchten

In this episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting series, Dr. Dylan George is joined by Nicolas Kruchten, VP of Product at Plotly, an In-Q-Tel portfolio company helping leading organizations close the gap between data science and the rest of the organization. Learn about the power of good data visualizations and how they can help guide decision-making and aid in COVID-19 response.

References:

• www.plotly.com
• Roundup of Dash apps made by community and partners: https://moderndata.plotly.com/covid-19-dash-apps/
• Singapore Ministry of Health: https://covidsitrep.moh.gov.sg/ 
• Nursing home data and app: https://covid-19-response.demo.socrata.com/stories/s/3eae-9zd5 and https://tylertech.plotly.com/
• Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases
• Tracking and Comparing projections: https://www.covid-projections.com/
• NVIDIA RAPIDS app: https://github.com/rapidsai/plotly-dash-rapids-census-demo/tree/covid-19 
• Traffic analysis app by Stantec: https://covid-vmt.stantec.global/

Risk Analytics in a Pandemic, with Metabiota’s Nathan Wolfe

In this episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting series, B.Next’s Dr. Dylan George and IQT’s Ryan Lewis are joined by Nathan Wolfe of In-Q-Tel portfolio company Metabiota. Tune in as they discuss Nathan’s work as a virus hunter, their hope for the novel coronavirus to be a once in a lifetime event, the need for real-time prediction system for pandemic risk, and more.

References:

• We Can Protect the Economy From Pandemics. Why Didn't We?
• Catastrophic Modeling and Risk Analytics, with Metabiota’s Nita Madhav
• https://www.metabiota.com/

The Effect Disease Modeling Has on Interventions and Planning Scenarios, with Marc Lipsitch

Marc Lipsitch, Professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard University, and Director of the Center for Communicable Diseases and Dynamics joins hosts Drs. Dylan George and Caitlin Rivers as they consider data analytics, public health interventions, disease modeling, and the need for the public health community to be at the fore to help implement, design, and execute strategies to manage the COVID-19 response.

References:

• Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics

Using AI to Identify Valuable Patterns in Data, with Outlier.AI’s Sean Byrnes

In this episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting Series, Dr. Dylan George sits down with Sean Byrnes, CEO of Outlier.AI, (an In-Q-Tel portfolio company) in a discussion about looking for insights – changes, indicators – from the bottom up rather than asking questions from the top down. Outlier produces a coronavirus tracker, a daily report on Outlier’s findings in the pandemic data. The company is focused on helping organizations identify unexpected changes within their critical business data.

References:

• www.outlier.ai

Catastrophic Modeling and Risk Analytics, with Metabiota’s Nita Madhav

In this episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting series, Drs. Dylan George and Caitlin Rivers are joined by Nita Madhav, CEO of Metabiota, an In-Q-Tel portfolio company working to make the world more resilient to epidemics. The trio explore Metabiota’s use of data to understand and report epidemic preparedness levels across nearly 200 countries, epidemiological modeling to understand disease spread, and a fear index revealing economic impact from coronavirus.

References:

• www.metabiota.com

The Value of Data and Analytics in Outbreak Response, with Dr. Tom Frieden

Data plus analytics (with human intelligence) will yield better informed decision making. Join Dr. Tom Frieden, former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former Commissioner of the New York City Health Department, and now President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, and series hosts Drs. Dylan George and Caitlin Rivers as they explore what data should be collected and analyzed to enable an appropriate public health response to novel coronavirus and other public health challenges.

 

References:

• Resolve to Save Lives