Characterization
Which viruses are potentially hazardous to humans and other animals?
The fight against pandemics has historically focused on post-emergence responses, emphasizing the development of much-needed tools and interventions such as vaccines and therapeutics to reduce the scale of disease outbreaks. However, there is also a need for research and investment in the pre-emergence phase. Such investments would generate critical intelligence to support improved pandemic forecasting and reduce the frequency of future spillover events. A crucial part of this effort involves describing the pre-emergent diversity of viruses circulating in bats and other wildlife. However, simply identifying an unknown virus or viral sequence does not reveal its zoonotic or pandemic potential.
In the Anthony Lab, we focus on identifying viruses that have the potential to emerge as threats by evaluating their ability to infect human cells, utilize cellular resources (i.e., replicate efficiently), and evade or suppress host innate immunity.
By distinguishing between viruses with the genetic prerequisites for establishing a productive infection in human cells and those without, we aim to identify the traits that define potentially zoonotic viruses. Ranking viruses according to their potential for human infection then allows us to direct basic research and interventions toward those viruses posing the highest risk for spillover.
We aim to identify the traits that define potentially zoonotic viruses.
Our Contributions
Recent examples of our work to characterize bat viruses include the characterization of a MERS-like CoV discovered in a bat in Uganda, a novel ebolavirus discovered in bats in Sierra Leone, two SARS-related viruses identified in bats in Rwanda and Uganda, and a novel morbillivirus (a type of paramyxovirus) found in bats in Brazil.