Cibinong – PR BRIN. Head of the Eijkman Research Center for Molecular Biology of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Elisabeth Farah Novita Coutrier stated, her party is currently focusing on genomic research to anticipate the possibility of a future pandemic.
“What we want to find out is whether there are other viruses that can suddenly spread in large numbers, causing the potential for the next pandemic, including whether there are viruses originating from animals moving to humans, such as the zika virus or hantavirus,” said Farah, when met at the Genomics Laboratory, Science and Technology Area Soekarno BRIN, Cibinong, Tuesday (27/06).
Apart from that, he continued, most of the research was still continuing the research that had been carried out at the previous Eijkman Institute, which had now been integrated into BRIN. These include research on molecular pathogens, hepatitis, research on vector-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, malaria, and other viral diseases.
There is also research related to cytogenetic diseases, namely hereditary diseases, such as abnormalities from genetic inheritance. Then research using molecular structure and changes.
“For the sampling itself, we are working with the Health Office in the regions, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and also the Coordinating Ministry for PMK,” explained Farah.
Farah continued, data from whole genome sequencing (WGS) needed further processing. Therefore, his party is working with the Electronics and Informatics Research Organization of BRIN, forming the Bioinformatics Research Group, so that the resulting genomic data can be understood by researchers, and used for drug or vaccine research, to mitigate the next pandemic.
“So I want to emphasize that we can use these data to predict the possibility of the next pandemic, so that research on vaccines or drugs can be more directed and useful, for example to suppress the spread (boom) of these viruses,” he said.
The Coordinator of the Implementation Function of Cryo-EM BRIN Sandi Sufiandi added, genome sequence data needs to be processed using bioinformatics methods. BRIN has High Performance Computing (HPC), up to 96 high-performance computing nodes, which are prepared to process data storage.
“Besides we have a collection of physical data, be it samples of viruses, microbes and others. We also have a data repository, all research data is stored in one place to become big data. It is time for research to reach the level of data science, processing big data, so that The information is holistic,” he explained. (tnt)
2023-06-28 01:12:30
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