Dataset for selecting surrogates of emerging biothreat pathogens in laboratory research

Exposure to and transmission of biothreat agents is a serious concern with potentially devastating public health consequences. The rapid development of environmental countermeasure strategies is essential for mitigation efforts, as observed during the recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Only a limited number of laboratories are equipped with the proper containment facilities to handle highly pathogenic biothreat agents. Resources such as Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL), the Bacterial Diversity Database (BacDive), and the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) contain information on bacteria and viruses to aid researchers in selecting non-pathogenic surrogates for laboratory testing aimed at modeling pathogenic agents of interest and developing risk mitigation strategies. Currently, no single, comprehensive dataset exists that includes bacterial and viral surrogate candidates for experimental use. Thus, data from BMBL, BacDive, ICTV, and other available data sources were retrieved and culled to create the Biothreat Surrogate Alignment (BSA) dataset, a set of pertinent surrogate data. Fields describing possible surrogates that would be most applicable to a specific threat are included.