Great work to a great team (including Columbus Zoo & Aquarium and the Denver Zoo), and extra high-fives to Drs. David Minich and Chris Madden for leading this effort.
Our article is now available here from Animal Microbiome.
And from the lorikeets, who were the inspiration behind all of this:
Columbus Zoo & Aquarium Wildlights 2021
For more info on SARS-CoV-2 in Ohio deer, check out our article now available in Nature.
Sequencing indicates multiple human to deer spillover events (B.1.2, B.1.596, B.1.582) and suggests deer to deer transmission.
Critical questions to answer next: How are the deer getting infected? Can deer populations potentially serve as a SARS-CoV-2 reservoir? Can SARS-CoV-2 in deer spillover into other species or spillback into humans? How could deer-specific SARS-CoV-2 mutations potentially affect virus transmission, virulence, and immune system escape?
Published article now available here in Nature.
Image: Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
Ryan Mrofchak’s paper titled, “Urine and Fecal Microbiota in a Canine Model of Bladder Cancer” was just posted to biorXiv. Check out his work here!
Photo of Ryan and Lola by Dr. Brian Husbands.
Fried chicken testing…
Lab Holiday Dinner: Good food, great company, terrible photography!
Happy Holidays to all!
Vanessa guest lectured in a beautiful Hope College auditorium (Holland, OH) on rainbow lorikeets and lorikeet enteritis. Thanks for the invitation Hope College!
The eSCOUT (Environmental Surveillance for COVID-19 in Ohio: Understanding Transmission) team in collaboration with the NVSL/USDA and NIH found SARS-CoV-2 in 35.8% of deer tested in Northeast Ohio. Sequencing indicates multiple human to deer spillover events (B.1.2, B.1.596, B.1.582) and suggests deer to deer transmission. This raises concerns about deer as a potential reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. For preprint, click here.
Tessa was awarded in the “Molecular and Basic” research category for her presentation titled, “Gut microbiota shaped by diet and phylogeny in seven cercopithecids from Tai Forest, Ivory Coast.”
Congratulations Tessa!
Photo by Claire Witham.
Kilmer’s study on the effects of tetracycline exposure on honey bee gut microbiota was just released in a special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution focused on the Impact of Anthropogenic Environmental Changes on Animal Microbiomes. Way to go Kilmer and team!
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.716660/full
Preprint on this work is available here.
Work hard, play hard! Our lab adventure to the zoo….
