On Jun. 16, 2020, a consortium that includes many of San Diego’s top medical and scientific research institutes launched a large-scale COVID-19 screening effort to better understand the spread and prevalence of the virus in the local community, with an initial focus on evaluating healthcare workers and first responders.

Known as the San Diego Epidemiology and Research for COVID Health (SEARCH) alliance, the cross-institutional collaboration is co-led by scientists and clinical researchers at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, Scripps Research and University of California San Diego.