Lookout
A free and open-source platform for unifying and sharing public health data.
Connects data from multiple sources.
Combine epidemiological, genomic, and clinical data into a single view for better analysis and sharing.
Easy to deploy.
Get started in just a few minutes, run on your own infrastructure, no monthly fees.
Lightweight and low resource.
Just 200 KB for the Lookout core, and can load thousands of records instantly. Ideal for deployments with inconsistent internet connections.
Try an interactive demo
How Lookout works
Use your existing data sources
Clinical, epigenetic, genomic, public health, etc.
REDCAP
Delphy
Spreadsheets
SORMAS
Terra
DHIS2
or
Create your own
Explore their connections in Lookout
Instantly filter to identify clusters and patterns
Share and use those findings
Build audience-specific views
Spin up different views on the same data in Lookout for researchers, public health officials, and others
Generate customizable PDF reports
Share findings over email, or at SITREPs, presentations, and roundtables
Export filtered data
Get interesting subsets as a spreadsheet for further analysis
Connect to other tools
Explore phylogenetic clusters inside Delphy or Juniper
Incredibly fast.
Sort, filter, and scrub through millions of records with no lag.
Supports rapid response efforts.
Quickly identify where, when, what, and how bad an emerging threat might be, and communicate that information with others.
Compatible with existing workflows.
Pull in data from the tools you’re already using—we’ve deployed Lookout taking in data from SORMAS, DHIS2, REDCap, custom APIs, static files, and more.
Example sites
We've deployed Lookout for local clinics, national public health departments, and response teams tracking active outbreaks.
Real-world data
SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
codeGlobal ∙ 2019–2020
A global view of the first months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Features a world map, an evolutionary tree with lineages, and text analysis.
Mpox Outbreak
Sierra Leone ∙ 2025
A view that deployed in just six hours to support Sierra Leone’s response efforts during the 2025 Mpox outbreak. Read more about it in this TIME article about the outbreak and its implications.
Measles
United States ∙ 2022-2026
A single-pathogen view with data extracted from NCBI measles sequences and CDC's public data dashboards.
Synthetic data
Disease X
codeBased on our ongoing work with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, but replaced with synthesized data for privacy. This view is designed to support cluster detection by linking sequencing data with clinical records.
H5N1
codeA view of the current H5N1 outbreak in the United States, with a focus on pathogen evolution across hosts. Features data from Kristian Andersen's group resampled across geographic regions due to lack of reporting.
SORMAS
codeAn example of tracking multiple pathogens. Originally created to demonstrate integration with SORMAS (a nationally deployed public health platform) for the Nigeria CDC.
Nigeria
codeA modified version of our ongoing national surveillance deployment with Nigeria’s Institute of Genomics and Global Health. For privacy purposes, this demo uses synthetic data.
United States
codeA multi-pathogen view with detailed single pathogen subviews set in the United States. Features seasonal infection dynamics with localized outbreaks.
Lookout has been developed in collaboration with the Sabeti Lab of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard under the Sentinel project—a framework for comprehensive outbreak surveillance and response co-led by Pardis Sabeti and Christian Happi. This work was awarded the Audacious Prize in early 2020 and a MacArthur Foundation 100&Change grant in 2025.