Editor’s note: This is the seventh article in a 7-part series that highlights the work of technicians and scientists working in Military Health System laboratories who worked to identify COVID-19 variants using special sequencing technology.

The U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s 711 Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, oversees the Department of Defense’s Global Respiratory Pathogen Surveillance Program. This program has a unique reach across the Military Health System and secures biological samples for sequencing from an incredibly expansive geographic footprint across the globe.

“The approach of the program is to capture a representative set of samples from MHS patients who show up each week to their health care provider with respiratory illness, such as COVID-19 and influenza,” said Dr. Anthony Fries, principal lead for the program at USAFSAM.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the program was essential in fostering communication among the partner laboratories, securing funding, and championing the need for genomic surveillance in the DOD, which was exemplified by their shepherding of the DOD SARS-CoV-2 Whole Genome Sequencing Action Plan.