Purpose: The CDC's Office of Advanced Molecular Detection (OAMD) seeks to develop an effective public health workforce prepared to address infectious disease threats, including:
- Improved workforce knowledge and skills regarding next-generation sequencing (NGS), bioinformatics, and other AMD technologies.
- Improved NGS capacity in state and local health departments.
With regards to building bioinformatics capacity at the state a local public health level, this will be achieved through the following activities:
- Assist the regional training lead in developing and carrying out training. This may involve, for example, assisting in the development of web-based modules that could be used within the region or nationally.
- Consult with states and localities in the region on bioinformatics problems. This may involve, for example, performing ad hoc bioinformatics analysis for those states or localities or assisting a staff member in one of their laboratories in doing his or her own analysis.
- Coordinate and communicate with regional training leads and participants for bioinformatics technical support.
- Consult with local or state IT departments regarding IT policies necessary to support AMD implementation.
- Work with states or localities to resolve IT problems that are limiting the use of AMD technologies.
- Assist states and large localities in the region in bioinformatics analysis, either by assisting staff in those organizations or by performing the analysis themselves.
- Work with state labs and CDC to find sustainable, affordable solutions to state and local health department AMD-related informatics needs such as storage and cloud computing.
- Work with state and local health departments to promote data sharing (where needed and appropriate).
With regards to our workforce development at the state a local public health level, this will be achieved through the following activities:
- Hosting new and existing trainings, collaborating with local or regional partners where possible.
- Conducting training needs assessment before scheduling regional or local training.
- Conducting training evaluations to measure impact of course(s) and perform continuous improvement of training program.
- Coordinating training activities with regional training participants.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is funded as both the Workforce Development Lead and Bioinformatics Regional Resource for the Northeast Region. Any lab within the Northeast Region needing assistance with any activity described above should feel free to contact Glen Gallagher or Joel Sevinsky at the MA Department of Health. We are funded through the ELC grant for these activities and there is no cost associated with this assistance. Please follow the link HERE and fill out the contact information and we will get back to you shortly.