NASA grants $730,000 to University of Oklahoma researchers for emerging diseases research

Researchers at the University of Oklahoma received a $730,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) last week, to aid their investigations of emerging diseases — research made all the more timely by the emergence of the Chinese novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

The university will enlist both undergraduate and graduate students in its efforts, using interdisciplinary research to study emerging risk zones and zoonotic disease outbreaks — those resulting from increased contact between humans and animals. The research grant, part of NASA’s Land Use Land Change Program, will support the development of new measures to identify existing population vulnerabilities and forecast potential outbreak situations.

“The goal of our research is to determine if we can better predict the economic, public health and environmental risks of large-scale development initiatives, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative, by carefully measuring and monitoring environmental and urban land cover and land use change in the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor,” said Kirsten de Beurs, principal investigator and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability at OU.

As part of research efforts, collaboration and information sharing will be undertaken with local researchers and stakeholders throughout Central Asia. Along the way, the researchers hope their efforts will also enhance that region’s ability to identify and respond to new health threats. As 2019-nCoV has reached 25 countries, infected more than 42,000 people, and killed more than 1,000 in a matter of months, speed is of the essence in such scenarios.

Central Asia has attracted the researchers’ concerns for its vulnerability. This is due to a lack of adequate modern health care systems, shortage of public funding for health, massive new infrastructure investments increasing connection between countries, and rapid rates of urbanization among them.

NASA’s grant is part of its Land Use Change Program and will see remote sensing specialists paired with socioeconomic and health analysis by social scientists.