BOSTON, MA – The Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network (BEACON) leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI), large language models (LLMs) and a network of globally based experts to rapidly collect, analyze, and disseminate information on emerging infectious diseases affecting humans, animals, and the environment. BEACON Director, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia remarks, “BEACON comes at a time when we need more global collaboration and coordination when new biological threats appear. The platform not only reports new threats but also provides background and reasons for why a threat matters and where it should fall on our ranking of concern.”
BEACON is housed at Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases and operated in partnership with the Hariri Institute for Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University and HealthMap at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“The launch of BEACON represents an exciting evolution in the field of infectious disease surveillance,” says Dr. John Brownstein, Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and a BEACON Co-Director. “By integrating HealthMap’s decades-long experience in real-time epidemic monitoring with BEACON’s novel AI-driven architecture, we’re creating a uniquely powerful, open-source tool for rapid detection and contextualization of emerging threats.”
At its launch, BEACON will be the only open-source global surveillance platform of its kind, linking public health authorities, practitioners, researchers, and the general public, rapidly and transparently sharing data and context about new threats. Like early warning systems for fires and hurricanes, BEACON’s job is to analyze and broadcast the rise of new threats. By providing near real time reports of sentinel cases, clusters and outbreaks, BEACON will enable early public health response, empower clinicians tracking recent travel and illnesses in their patients and inform communities of potential new threats.
“BEACON is the first biothreats reporting system to leverage the power of generative AI to process and analyze outbreak reports,” says Hariri Institute Director and a BEACON Co-Director Dr. Yannis Paschalidis. He adds, “BEACON employs our own PandemIQ Llama LLM, specifically adapted and trained to optimize performance for outbreak analysis and report generation.”
BEACON has already received a total of $6 million in funding support, including contributions from the National Science Foundation, the Gates Foundation, additional private donors, and Boston University.
Beyond financial support, BEACON has also established partnerships with high level stakeholders in the public health space including the World Health Organization’s Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources initiative, the World Organisation for Animal Health, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, state public health departments, and the CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics.
More information about BEACON can be found here.
BEACON’s launch event is scheduled for April 24, 2025, 2:00 to 5:30pm, available in Boston and by Zoom, and is open to the public. The platform prototype itself is live at beaconbio.org, allowing public health experts and the general public to experience the resource and share their feedback.
BEACON is poised to become a critical tool both globally and domestically in a time of shifting priorities in funding and resources. BEACON’s values include global accessibility which is why the platform is free and available to the public.
For more information, go to beaconbio.org.
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Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases (CEID) is a university wide center focused on global health security and linking technical knowledge to policy issues related to emerging pathogens and epidemic threats. CEID’s core mission is to improve resilience against the threat of emerging & epidemic infectious diseases worldwide through public health and policy research, global and local capacity strengthening, training, evidence generation for policy support, and community engagement.