Newsletter Articles

In this article, I discuss the extraordinary work of two UTMB laboratory scientists in identifying and characterizing highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses that impacted a Texas dairy farm in March of 2024. Like many foreign scholars working at UTMB, Drs. Lyudmyla Marushchak and Judith Oguzie trained in countries far from the United States. Yet their interesting backgrounds and training have made them well-suiting for studying emerging zoonotic respiratory viruses that infect humans and animals.

Dr. Jim Zhang is a professor at the Duke Global Health Institute and the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, a pioneer investigating the relationship between air pollution and human health, and a longtime collaborator of UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray. When Dr. Zhang was last interviewed for the UTMB One Health Newsletter, he and Dr. Gray, alongside their collaborators, had just been awarded $3 million in NIH funding to study the effects of air pollutants on respiratory health in Mongolia. Now, he speaks with me about study progress thus far.

There are four groups of viruses that cause influenza: A, B, C and D.(1) Influenza A & B cause seasonal epidemics of disease in humans. Different influenza subtypes develop from combinations of two surface proteins known as hemagglutinin &, neuraminidase. Most influenza A types arise in wild birds. Colloquially these are often called ‘avian flu'. Avian flu is widespread in wild birds & has recently been detected sporadically in livestock. (2) There have also been human cases of avian flu reported recently. In collaboration with Texas dairy farms, UTMB’s One Health laboratory has been busy investigating the cattle avian influenza epizootic here in Texas.

Dean Guy Loneragan, BVSc, PhD, Dean and Professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine at Texas Tech University (TTU), welcomed a very unique inaugural class of students in Fall 2021. Twenty-five graduate students accepted the challenge to earn a PhD in One Health Sciences. TTU's PhD program is one of world's first PhD programs to offer a PhD diploma with the words "One Health". John Gibbons, MS, PhD, Program Director for One Health, describes the program as a 72-credit-hour deep learning experience with a broader vision of One Health training to improve public health. The program is rapidly growing.

I recently met with Dr. Bui Nghia Vuong and Dr. Tung Duy Dao to discuss their research letter concerning a 2023 case of SARS-CoV-2 in a hippopotamus, which was published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Both scientists collaborate with UTMB in One Health work from the Virology Department of the National Institute of Veterinary Research in Hanoi, Vietnam, and have each earned both a DVM and PhD.

In this article, Laura Borkenhagen, a PhD student at Tufts University and a UTMB One Health collaborator, discusses a recent publication regarding a likely introduction of a novel H9N2 avian influenza a virus in Myanmar live bird markets.

Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff summarizes the bleeding edge of One Health investigations for emerging viruses in her recent podcast episode, titled “How do pandemics begin? There's a new theory — and a new strategy to thwart them.” Doucleff, a decorated NPR correspondent and prolific journalist in the field of infectious diseases, speaks with several experts in the field, including UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray.

Rachel Busselman, a DVM/PhD student in the lab of Dr. Sarah Hamer, DVM, PhD at Texas A&M University, discusses her recently published review article summarizing the current state of Chagas disease among animal populations in the United States.

On December 1st, the University of Texas Medical Branch hosted the first-ever One Health Symposium, subtitled “From Bench to Bedside: How One Health is Already Part of Your World.” The half-day event, held on-campus as well as virtually, featured a large cadre of research and healthcare experts speaking about their work and its relevancy to the tenants of One Health.

In this article, Dr. Matt Dacso discusses his recent publication in the One Health academic journal highlighting collaborative efforts by Texas professionals that endorse a One Health approach. Dacso, a bastion of international health advocacy and practice at UTMB, currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine as well as the Director of the Center for Global Health Education.