Spectrum Health will collaborate with Michigan State University researchers on their portion of an $18.5 million grant to collect and analyze genetic data to address emerging infectious disease threats and improve the state’s ability to respond to them. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced in January $18.5 million in federal funds had been awarded over the next two years to four state universities, including MSU. The universities will work to increase sequencing capacity in the state starting with COVID-19 and then other infectious disease threats. Spectrum Health says it’s glad to help. Spectrum Health laboratories have performed more than 1.2 million COVID-19 tests since the start of the pandemic. The testing represents patients from 82 of the 83 counties and 859 of 979 zip codes in Michigan. MSU says the sequencing project is “essential as we focus on developing new computational tools for this pandemic and future viruses.”
