IBM is lending a helping hand in the battle against a potential flu pandemic, or breakout of another infectious disease, by offering some of its computer technology and expertise to the United States’ public health community, The Wall Street Journal reports.Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM is expected to announce on Monday plans to construct a huge diagram of how a flu pandemic could spread on an epidemiological modeling framework called STEM, based on health information from hospitals, geographic data from road maps, airline travel routes and flight times, the Journal reports. IBM plans to offer that framework to the public health sector in an open-source format, allowing for regular changes and updates, according to the Journal.The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu has caused human deaths in countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq, and scientists and health officials fear it may transform into a state that is more easily communicable by human beings, sparking a global pandemic.IBM will also employ supercomputers to create models meant to detail how influenza viruses could spread, to help officials predict possible mutations, according to the Journal. Those models could help researchers create effective vaccines before viruses could spread, saving officials and the public at large time, effort and potential deaths. Typically, a virus needs to be examined and studied before a working vaccine can be derived. IBM will work on the initiative with Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, Calif., a biomedical research entity, according to the the Journal.Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost The steep cost of a poor data management strategy Without a data management strategy, organizations stall digital progress, often putting their business trajectory at risk. Here’s how to move forward. By Jay Limbasiya, Global AI, Analytics, & Data Management Business Development, Unstructured Data Solutions, Dell Technologies Jun 09, 2023 6 mins Data Management feature How Capital One delivers data governance at scale With hundreds of petabytes of data in operation, the bank has adopted a hybrid model and a ‘sloped governance’ framework to ensure its lines of business get the data they need in real-time. By Thor Olavsrud Jun 09, 2023 6 mins Data Governance Data Management feature Assessing the business risk of AI bias The lengths to which AI can be biased are still being understood. The potential damage is, therefore, a big priority as companies increasingly use various AI tools for decision-making. By Karin Lindstrom Jun 09, 2023 4 mins CIO Artificial Intelligence IT Leadership brandpost Rebalancing through Recalibration: CIOs Operationalizing Pandemic-era Innovation By Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies Jun 08, 2023 6 mins CIO Digital Transformation Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe