A major step toward harmonizing global pathogen surveillance: the PDN Priority Pathogens repository – a curated, open-access and updatable list of high-priority pathogens – is now available to the global research and public health community.
Tackling fragmentation in pathogen prioritization
This resource addresses a long-standing challenge in infectious disease surveillance and response: the lack of a harmonized, transparent, and regularly updated reference list of priority pathogens. Its objectives:
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- Aggregate pathogen prioritization lists from leading public health and research organizations (including NIAID and WHO).
- Provide a unified reference with consistent taxonomy and annotation.
- Support pathogen surveillance, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity efforts.
- Make prioritization data machine-readable, as many official lists are only available in formats (PDFs or websites) that are not readily accessible for automated analysis.
This new PDN resource thus supports data interoperability across public health, academic, and diagnostic initiatives, enabling more coordinated and effective pathogen monitoring.
Alignment with PDN’s mission
This effort directly supports PDN’s objectives to promote data standardization, facilitate cross-border data sharing, and strengthen early warning capabilities through better alignment of surveillance priorities.
“By defining a standardized, machine-readable list of priority pathogens, we’re making it easier to develop interoperable bioinformatics tools and streamline communication between the bioinformatics community and public health organizations.”
Sara Monzón
PDN’s co-Principal Investigator
Carlos III Health Institute (Spain)
Making it happen: collaboration and openness
This milestone was made possible through close collaboration between PDN partners, including Leibniz Institute (DSMZ – Germany), South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI), European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) and Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII – Spain), and by leveraging open-source principles to ensure transparency, reproducibility, and global accessibility.
What’s next?
The priority pathogens list is intended to be a living resource that evolves with community input and practical use. Ongoing work aims to ensure their optimal integration into PDN platforms and to foster collaboration across the network. Key aspects of its future development include:
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- Integration into the Pathogen Portal: The list will be used to support search functionality, data organization, and visualizations within the platform.
- Engagement with public health organizations: The list will be presented to national and international public health bodies to gather feedback and guide future improvements.
- Collaboration across BRCs: The list will be shared with other BRCs (Bioinformatics Resource Centers) to align prioritization criteria and foster cooperation across centers.
Community contribution and maintenance: Contribution guidelines are in preparation to encourage transparency and make the list’s evolution a collaborative effort.
Call to action
We encourage public health agencies, data scientists, and surveillance system developers to review, reuse, and contribute to the list via GitHub. Feedback and suggestions are welcome to ensure the list remains relevant and actionable.
Workstreams involved: WS1 Pathogens Portals, WS2 FAIR Data Management and WS3 Data Analysis