Facts at a Glance
- Initial Funding: May 1, 2004
- Funding Mechanism: U01 (Collaborative Research Grant)
- Total Funding for MIDAS grants in FY08: $7.4 million
|
- The network consists of:
- one informatics group, with roughly $3 million per year in direct costs; and
- seven multi-institutional research groups
|
The MIDAS Vision
As a collaborative network of scientists, MIDAS leads in researching the use of computational and mathematical models to prepare the nation in responding to outbreaks of infectious diseases, whether they occur deliberately or naturally.
MIDAS Has a Three-Fold Mission:
Research
MIDAS investigators conduct research on models for studying:
- Dynamics of emergence and spread of pathogens and their products
- Identification and surveillance of infectious diseases
- Effectiveness and consequences of intervention strategies
- Host/pathogen interactions
- Ecological, climatic, and evolutionary dimensions of infectious diseases outbreaks.
Informatics
The MIDAS informatics mission includes:
- Developing large-scale computational resources
- Creating information and knowledge management tools
- Formulating analytical and statistical approaches
- Creating a repository for the deposition of models, results, and information
- Acquiring a variety of data relevant to modeling
- Testing and validating models.
Collaboration
MIDAS has a wider mission to:
- Catalyze discussions among modelers, policymakers, and the public health community that involve setting priorities and designing studies
- Take leadership to ensure that MIDAS software is translated into useful tools for the public health community
- Share results and resources with the MIDAS network, policymakers, public health officials, and the scientific community
- Take advantage of the intellectual capital within MIDAS to undertake projects that would be impossible for any single group.
