CIDD Best student paper 2019 awardees announced

Congratulations to Catherine Herzog (Bjornstad lab- 2nd place) and Sreenidhi Srinivasan (Kapur lab- 1st place) for being awarded the Inaugural Peter J. Hudson CIDD best student prizes. Catherine’s paper was on peste des petits ruminants virus in northern Tanzania, and Sree’s paper was on an improved skin test to distinguish between vaccine-related and infected bovine TB. There were plenty of deserving entries, so thanks to everyone that participated.

The award, named after CIDD’s former Director, Dr. Pete Hudson was created to recognize student excellence. The criteria for the award were as follows: The paper must be 1) student led 2) have been announced previously in ‘CIDD Good News’ during the year. 3) address a novel or creative question, report a significant advancement for the field, demonstrate significant translational impact or be an example of highly effective interdisciplinary research. Next year’s applications will be due on Dec 1st, 2020, so stay tuned!

 

 

Risky trade-offs alter ant movement

A new research synopsis entitled “Risky trade-offs alter ant movement” has been published on CIDDTV. The synopsis covers results from a study from CIDD researchers Natalie Imirzian, Christoph Kurze, Raquel Loreto, and David Hughes with collaborators at the University of Notre Dame.

The researchers investigated forager ant behavior the rainforests of Southeastern Brazil, as these forager ants are exposed to predators and pathogens as they leave the nest. The group used cameras to capture ant behavior on the main foraging trails and developed a deep learning model that tracks ants frame-by-frame in the videos to generate a detailed dataset of ant movement in a natural setting. What they observed is that there is a trade off in the ants’ behaviors for avoiding disease vs. food acquisition.

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/risky-trade-offs-alter-ant-movement

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTV, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.

Graduate Students Share Their Research at CIDD Seminar

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  Justin Munro (Llinás Lab)

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  Hannah Greenberg (Machtinger Lab)

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  Sahar Zarmehri (Hanks Lab)

At this weeks CIDD Seminar, Penn State graduate students Hannah Greenberg (Machtinger Lab), Justin Munro (Llinás Lab), and Sahar Zarmehri (Hanks Lab) discussed their research progress with the CIDD community.

Hannah presented her work on Ongoing Research into the Effects of Sarcoptic Mange on Health and Movement of Pennsylvania’s Black Bear Population.

Justin presented his work on Using Metabolomics to Understand the Role of Acetyl-CoA during Growth of Asexual Plasmodium falciparum parasites.

And Sahar presented her work on Combining Animal Movement and Seroprevalence Data for Prediction of Wildlife Disease Spread.

We are so proud of our graduate students!

CIDD Seminars are held Thursdays at 11:00 am in W-203 Millennium Science Complex.

Livestock management systems impact disease risk

Photo Credit: pxhere

A new research synopsis entitled “Livestock management systems impact disease risk” by Catherine Herzog has been published on CIDDTV. The synopsis covers results from a study led by CIDD graduate student Catherine Herzog in the lab of Ottar Bjørnstad. Other CIDD researchers involved in this effort include Isabella Cattadori, Vivek Kapur, and Peter Hudson, as well as collaborators Will de Glanville, Brian Willett and Sarah Cleaveland from the University of Glasgow, and T.J. Kibona and Joram Buza at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Tanzania.

The researchers investigated the seroprevalence of Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) in sheep, goat, and cattle in villages in the Arusha, Kilimanjaro, and Manyara regions of northern Tanzania during 2016 to determine the distribution of the virus. The results of this work provide insights into this multi-host livestock disease system that may be used to develop improved disease control practices.

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/livestock-management-systems-impact-disease-risk

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTV, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.

CIDD party, September 2019

A special thank to Dr. Elizabeth McGraw for hosting a welcome-back party with delicious homemade dishes for all CIDD members on 08 September 2019. There were activities, lawn games, and particular the use of “drink tickets” to help mixing and facilitate conversations between faculties and students.

Assessing multiple sources of uncertainty in epidemic management

Illustration of three different types of relationship between the expected effect of candidate interventions and the corresponding budget (on a scale of 0 – 100). The three dotted grey vertical lines at budgets of 25, 50 and 75 represent low, intermediate and high budget levels, respectively. 

A new research synopsis entitled “Assessing multiple sources of uncertainty in epidemic management” by Shouli Li has been published on CIDDTV. The synopsis covers results from a study led by Shou-Li Li, a postdoctoral scholar in the Shea lab at Penn State University. Other CIDD researchers were involved in this work, including Matt Ferrari and Ottar Bjørnstad, as well as collaborators from USGS (Michael Runge), Vanderbilt University (Chris Fonnesbeck), University of Warwick (Michael Tildesley) and The University of Western Australia (David Pannell).

The researchers used Ebola outbreak management from 2014 as a case study to concurrently assess the effect of two key types of operational uncertainty on the identification of the optimal intervention, and use this information to inform decision-making for the management of disease outbreaks. 

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/assessing-multiple-sources-of-uncertainty-in-epidemic-management

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTV, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.

Identifying differential expression of innate immune genes to Newcastle disease by breed and subline

Hens Image by JacLou DL from Pixabay

A new research synopsis entitled “Identifying differential expression of innate immune genes to Newcastle disease by breed and subline” by Catherine Herzog has been published on CIDDTV. The synopsis covers results from a study by Penn State researchers Megan Schilling, Sahar Memari, Meredith Cavanugh, Robab Katani, Jessica Radzio-Basu, and Vivek Kapur which investigated the transcriptional responses of innate immune genes to Newcastle disease virus infection in different sublines of the Fayoumi and Leghorn chicken breeds.

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/identifying-differential-expression-of-innate-immune-genes-in-poultry-by-br

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTV, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.

Transcriptomics reveals that a generalist parasitic plant maintains host specificity

Striga hermonthica “purple witchweed” growing on maize (photo credit: Emily Bellis)

A new research synopsis entitled “Transcriptomics reveals that a generalist parasitic plant maintains host specificity” by Dr. Lúa López has been published on CIDDTV. The synopsis covers results from a study of transcriptomic diversity of purple witchweed across its interactions with different hosts which was led by Dr. Lúa López,then a postdoc in Lasky Lab , now a Research Assistant Professor at Binghamton University.

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/transcriptomics-reveals-that-a-generalist-parasitic-plant-maintains-host-sp

Full text of the publication can be found at Lasky Lab’s “Publication” page.

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTV, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.

Variation in immune gene expression is related to Newcastle Disease Virus susceptibility in poultry

Poultry chicks with Newcastle disease virus (source: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)

A new research synopsis entitled “Variation in immune gene expression is related to Newcastle Disease Virus susceptibility in poultry” by Kelly Rios has been published on CIDDTV. It covers recent results from the inter-institutional collaboration led by Megan Schilling, a recent graduate from Dr. Vivek Kapur‘s lab, on what leads to different level of susceptibility to Newcastle disease virus in various breeds of poultry.

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/variation-in-innate-immune-gene-expression-is-related-to-newcastle-disease

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTV, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.

Novel Tick-Borne Viruses Identified Using Metaviromics

A new research synopsis entitled “Novel Tick-Borne Viruses Identified Using Metaviromics” by Kurt Vandegrift has been published on CIDDTV. The synopsis covers work published by CIDD’s Kurt Vandegift and his grant collaborator Dr. Amit Kapoor at Nationwide Children’s Hospital on the phylogenies of newly discovered viruses of ticks, in order to understand their potential to influence global public health.

Link to the synopsis: http://epidemics.psu.edu/articles/view/novel-tick-borne-viruses-identified-using-metaviromics

Past synopses can be found at http://epidemics.psu.edu/

If you would like your research featured on CIDDTv, please send an email to Ellen Brandell, our Research Synopsis Coordinator.