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Building a global atlas of wildlife disease data

Software development

We helped build the technical infrastructure for an open repository of animal disease detection data, making untapped scientific data meaningful, explorable, and actionable for ecology and public health research.

Client

Georgetown University

The challenge

Scientists studying wildlife diseases work in isolation, with valuable pathogen data scattered across individual research projects and institutions. Without a centralized database, researchers cannot effectively collaborate to anticipate where and when pathogens are likely to jump from animals to humans. This created significant gaps, like:

  • No shared infrastructure to help the scientific community anticipate and respond to emerging public health threats
  • No way to pool pathogen data across institutions, limiting research and policy-making capabilities
  • Valuable scientific data locked in individual projects and inaccessible to the broader research community

Our approach

Search and data accessibility

  • Built a comprehensive search feature allowing researchers to query the database across multiple dimensions, including pathogen type, host species, and observation dates
  • Developed reusable, accessible, and highly maintainable components to support long-term extensibility
  • Designed the search experience to make complex scientific data explorable by researchers worldwide

Testing and infrastructure

  • Developed a testing framework that runs automated tests of AWS Lambda functions locally against a temporary Docker instance of a PostgreSQL database
  • Eliminated the need to test within AWS infrastructure, improving development efficiency
  • Implemented a battery of integration tests to ensure the codebase remains easy to maintain and extend as the repository grows

Keys to success

Blue Tiger led the software development effort for a Georgetown University research team studying global pandemic prevention.

  • Open, accessible design that lowered barriers for researchers to contribute and explore data
  • Testing infrastructure that supported confident, efficient development
  • Reusable components built for long-term maintainability as the repository scales

Results and impact

We delivered the technical foundation needed for the first release of a wildlife disease data repository that supports global pandemic prevention research.

  • Built search functionality enabling researchers to efficiently explore disease data across multiple dimensions
  • Delivered a robust testing framework that supports confident, maintainable development as the repository grows
  • Contributed to the first MVP release of an open repository making wildlife disease data accessible to researchers worldwide
  • Contributed to a peer-reviewed paper published in Scientific Data as data and technology experts