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Imagine doing a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in the time it takes to finish a 100-piece puzzle. Apply that to infectious disease control, and that’s AMD at work. Now imagine putting together that 10,000-piece puzzle when key pieces are missing, disease is spreading, and people are dying. AMD gives CDC scientists the “key pieces” they need to protect people from ever-changing infectious disease threats.
CDC’s AMD program introduces rapid technological innovation to build bridges from trusted methods to new horizons in disease detection. By increasing critical next generation sequencing and bioinformatics capacities, CDC and state health departments can take back the advantage in controlling infectious diseases. The combined talents of experts in epidemiology, laboratory science, and bioinformatics are applying innovation to real world problems to keep us safe from new threats. Just as CT scans help doctors find things that aren’t visible in a physical exam, two important tools give us new insight into microbes:
- sequencing machines that can read the DNA or RNA code of a microbe and
- supercomputers that have the capacity to manage massive amounts of information with the software to intelligently detect patterns.
Many of these projects include state and local partners as well as several CDC laboratories. The projects focus on a range of pathogens and advance a variety of methods to protect public health.
CDC is transforming disease detection and response. Through technological innovation, CDC continually advances safeguards for America’s health.
- Page last reviewed: August 18, 2015
- Page last updated: August 18, 2015
- Content source:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Page maintained by: Office of Associate Director of Communication, Division of Public Affairs