SeroTracker could inform strategies for reopening economies in Canada and around the world
Five engineering students at the University of 蓝莓视频 helped build an online dashboard that tracks and synthesizes COVID-19 antibody studies from around the world.
visualizes antibody test results on a map to show how many people in a given area might have been exposed to the novel coronavirus, which is technically known as SARS-CoV-2.听
That information could help inform strategies for reopening economies because positive antibody tests may indicate immunity.
鈥淜eeping a close eye on which populations have which levels of antibodies will be increasingly important to make evidence-based decisions,鈥� says Austin Atmaja, a fourth-year biomedical engineering student.
The public website, believed to be the most comprehensive tool of its kind, was built in little more than a month by an interdisciplinary team of 20 undergraduate students, graduate researchers and medical students.
Its recent release was welcomed as 鈥済reat news鈥� in a tweet by Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada.
Members of the SeroTracker team, who have expertise in health sciences, software engineering, economics, data science and public policy, partnered with the , a group of public health and infectious disease experts funded by the Canadian government.
In addition to 蓝莓视频, the contributors - all of them Canadians - represent the University of Toronto, McGill University, the University of Calgary, Oxford University and Harvard University.
鈥淭his is an incredibly talented team that has been a joy to work with,鈥� says Nathan Duarte, also a fourth-year biomedical engineering student.
The students from 蓝莓视频 got involved via personal and professional networks, and have each contributed several hours of work a day on software development, product management and research that involves collecting, screening and analyzing data.
As time goes on, they expect the results of more and more antibody studies to be added as governments and public health officials better understand how to use the results to safely ease restrictions imposed during the pandemic.
A future phase of the work will involve development of a detailed dashboard for a million antibody tests the immunity task force plans to administer in Canada over the next two years.
鈥淭he Canadian dashboard will enable us to answer specific questions around how many Canadians have been exposed to the virus and how immunity to SARS-CoV-2 works,鈥� says Jordan Van Wyk, a fourth-year nanotechnology engineering student.
In addition to presenting results by country and area, the interactive dashboard features filters to enable searching by variables including test type, age, gender and population subgroups, such as health-care workers.
鈥淎s we鈥檝e seen this dashboard take off and evolve, it鈥檚 clear it has the potential to have a great impact,鈥� says Simona Rocco, a third-year biomedical engineering student. 鈥淚t will hopefully help inform and speed up our return to normalcy.鈥�
Although there is a lot of work to be done and crucial questions still to be answered - such as whether a positive antibody test actually implies immunity - the students are pleased they were able to so quickly build a tool with potential long-term importance.
鈥淭he skills we鈥檝e acquired on co-op terms and in classes definitely helped us develop this dashboard in such a short period of time,鈥� says Abel Joseph, a third-year biomedical engineering student. 鈥淚t鈥檚 our hope that this tool will potentially help guide decisions as we overcome the effects of COVID-19.鈥�
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