Newsletter Articles

Dr. Alan Landay has spent over 40 years in immunology, HIV, and global health research. As Vice President of Team Science, Professor of Internal Medicine, and Professor Microbiology and Immunology at UTMB, he works to understand how pathogens interact with the host immune system and its application to public health. His true magic lies in his ability to bring together experts from diverse disciplines—including medicine, veterinary science, basic biology, and environmental health—to develop sustainable solutions.

Multidisciplinary engagement underpins effective One Health approaches to infections at the human/animal/environmental interface. Dr. Gene Olinger, professor and Deputy Director of the Galveston National Laboratory at UTMB, shares how drawing from multiple perspectives has shaped his work in virology and his vision for the future of One Health work.

In 2021, an international research team reported the discovery of an unusual canine-like coronavirus(1) among patients hospitalized with pneumonia in Sarawak, Malaysia. Several months later this virus (named CCoV-HuPn-2018) was found by another research team among patients with respiratory disease who had just visited Haiti.(2) In collaboration with UTMB’s One Health Laboratory, researchers in Sarawak led by Pediatrician Dr. Teck-Hock Toh are seeking to better understand this virus’s epidemiology and transmission by studying patients in multiple Sarawak hospitals.

In this article, Dr. Susan McLellan, a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch and director of the Special Pathogens Excellence in Clinical Treatment, Readiness, and Education Program, describes her work supporting a human influenza virus vaccine challenge study.

Dr. Laura Pulscher, a postdoctoral fellow at UTMB’s One Health Research and Training Network, along with her senior colleagues Dr. Richard Webby of St. Jude Children’s Hospital and Professor Greg Gray at UTMB, recently published an algorithm for efficient characterization of influenza A viruses. She spoke with me regarding the role this algorithm may play in improving the testing efficiency of different specimen sample types that are suspected to contain influenza.

In the expansive realm of scientific investigation into the threat of disease, the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) stands at the forefront. Specifically, the West African Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (WAC-EID) within CREID engages in groundbreaking research projects, delving into the complex dynamics of emerging pathogens.

Dr. Robert Cross, an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UTMB, has an extensive curriculum vitae researching dangerous viruses. In this article he shares insights into Lassa virus, which causes a severe viral hemorrhagic fever in humans (Lassa fever), and which he has studied in both the laboratory and the field since 2009. Lassa virus poses One Health challenges through its rodent reservoir and prevalence in regions with poor infrastructure and sanitation.

Dennis Bente, DVM, PhD, a One Health pioneer at UTMB with a background in virology and veterinary medicine, elaborates on a recent NIH R01 grant awarded to his lab. This grant (alongside another from the Sealy Vaccine Institute) provides funding to advance a vaccine that should protect cattle – and subsequently humans – from infections with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, a deadly arbovirus native to Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean region.

Airborne pathogens are uniquely contagious drivers of outbreaks and, frighteningly, are the most probable candidates to be employed as bioterror weapons. This makes the effective study of airborne pathogens of high importance. Dr. William Lawrence, an associate professor at UTMB and the director of our Galveston National Lab Aerobiology Division, gave us an inside look into how we study airborne pathogens so countermeasures can be developed.