HHS, VA, Energy form data partnership for coronavirus vaccines and therapies

Three federal agencies agreed to coordinate and share data on potential COVID-19 vaccines and therapies as part of a pandemic response initiative announced Tuesday.

The departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs formed the COVID-19 Insights Partnership, which will use DOE’s high-performance computing resources for research and data analysis.

COVID-19 virology will also be studied, with HHS and VA expected to announce research projects as they launch.

“The volume and quality of the data HHS has on COVID-19 has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent months,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar in the announcement. “The Department of Energy’s world-class resources will help us derive new insights from the data we gather to help patients and protect our country.”

The new partnership builds on the work of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, which is offering resources to global researchers.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory‘s Summit is one of the world’s fastest supercomputers and already running complex analyses on massive, integrated coronavirus datasets. Now it will be put to work by the COVID-19 Insights Partnership as well.

“Our nation’s understanding of COVID-19 has already benefitted greatly from our world-leading high-performance computing and artificial intelligence resources,” Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said in a statement. “And we look forward to continuing our coordination across Federal departments and agencies in the fight against this virus.”