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Penn State researchers awarded $2.35 million to better predict ID outbreaks
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The National Science Foundation has provided Pennsylvania State University researchers with a grant of $2.35 million to study disease transmission among animals, specifically the virome within the white-footed mouse and the black-legged tick. It is hoped that this study will enable experts to better predict future outbreaks of infectious diseases within humans, according to a recent press release.
“The rodents that live in our homes and garages are the primary reservoirs for several of the emerging infectious viruses that we’ve seen in humans so far, including babesiosis, Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever,” Kurt Vandegrift, PhD, from the department of biology at Penn State, said in the release. “And we are frequently discovering new viruses in these rodents, and in the ticks that feed upon these rodents and then upon us.”
Because white-footed mice and black-legged ticks can harbor close relatives of human pathogens such as hepatitis C viruses and hantaviruses, studying these animals can lead to the identification of new infectious viruses before they infect humans. Researchers will use a type of artificial intelligence in which computers learn without being explicitly programmed, known as “machine learning,” to pool their data and make predictions about potential future infectious diseases.
Over the last 15 years, Vandegrift and colleagues have monitored thousands of white-footed mice each year, collecting various data, and counting and identifying the parasites contained in the mice. They then take a blood and fecal sample from each mouse, mark it with a transponder and release it for eventual recapture, which shows the investigators how the parasites move through individual mice within populations. They also compare the viromes of ticks that have fed on mice with those that have not during their various life stages. Human-caused disturbances and natural fluctuation in mouse/tick abundances will also be examined to determine whether they affect mouse and tick viromes and pathogen transmission patterns.
“Despite the staggering diversity of viruses and their prominence in causing many of the most virulent human emerging infectious diseases, very little is known about viral communities,” Vandegrift added. “We hope that our research will shed light on these important communities and how they spread through animal hosts, including humans.” – Savannah Demko
Disclosure: Vandegrift reports no relevant financial disclosures.