CSU receives $2 million gift to continue research on preventing future pandemics

Molly Bohannon
Fort Collins Coloradoan
Cassidy Hagan, left, and research associate Lizzy Creissen study tuberculosis in CSU professor Angelo Izzo's Lab.

Colorado State University received a $2 million grant to continue its interdisciplinary research in preventing future pandemics and improving pandemic responses.

The Anschutz Foundation gifted CSU the money to “further the development of new solutions for building resilience and agility in stopping infectious disease transmission among animals and people,” according to a CSU news release. 

The grant will be distributed over two years and will sponsor interdisciplinary research teams, diverse graduate students and fund one of the country’s first cyber biosecurity programs.  

Christian Anschutz, president of the foundation, said CSU’s interdisciplinary approach to public health is crucial in addressing infectious diseases. 

“This is a way to help ensure that the impact of the next outbreak is quickly minimized — or possibly avoided entirely,” Anschutz said in the release. “A multidisciplined approach is the best way to stop a pandemic.”

Alan Rudolph, vice president for research at CSU, said this funding will help CSU expand its infectious disease research and hopefully reduce the animal-to-human infectious diseases that have spiked in recent years. 

“We want to flatten the curve of animal or human losses from outbreaks,” he said in the release. “That’s what this gift is all about, building resilience to future outbreaks and increasing our agility in our response to these threats.”

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Since last March, CSU has had a number of cross-departmental teams researching COVID-19 from countless different angles, including vaccine and testing development. 

Candace Mathiason, director of the Infectious Disease and Rapid Response Network at CSU, told the Coloradoan that the network alone has more than 25 interdisciplinary teams working on COVID-19 and pandemic research right now, representing 12 departments, four centers and four colleges. 

“The development of small groups with diverse perspectives can help us better understand, not only within the sciences, but better understand what's happening in an infectious disease, pandemic situation,” said Mathiason, who is also an associate professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and pathology.

Recipients of the funding will be selected through a competitive process in early fall, according to the release, but CSU said focus areas will be improving surveillance to detect infectious disease threats, finding more agile production and distribution of vaccines and other countermeasures and, in the cyber biosecurity realm, protecting health data used in pandemic responses. 

The grant will also fund research looking at the role of social science in pandemic responses, according to CSU, looking into topics like vaccine hesitancy and social or cultural practices that may influence a pandemic response in the future. 

“It's not just important for this pandemic,” said Mathiason of the topics various teams at CSU are researching. “It's important for society as a whole to better understand the biological things that are happening around us every day.”

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Molly Bohannon covers education for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @molboha or contact her at mbohannon@coloradoan.com. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.