Discovery
What viruses are currently circulating in wildlife?
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on our planet; however, our understanding of their diversity and distribution in nature is extremely poor.
To date, only a fraction of the viruses circulating in wildlife have been described, despite the availability of sophisticated tools to find and characterize viral genomes and despite clear evidence that wildlife species host a disproportionate number of zoonotic viruses.
Why Bats?
Bats, in particular, have been identified as important hosts of zoonotic viruses, motivating efforts to find and characterize the viruses they carry. These studies have yielded many important discoveries, but significant gaps remain. There are over 1400 species of bats and very few have been comprehensively surveyed, meaning most viruses circulating in bats have not been described.
The Anthony Lab works to discover new viruses in wildlife that pose a zoonotic risk to humans ...
The Anthony Lab works to discover and describe new viruses in wildlife such as bats, looking for novel viruses in families that pose a zoonotic risk to humans, including coronaviruses (e.g., SARS-CoV-2; MERS-CoV), paramyxoviruses (e.g., Nipah virus), and filoviruses (e.g., Ebola virus).
Our Contributions
Over the past decade we have made several important contributions to the field, including: a global survey for CoVs in bats, the discovery of a novel ebolavirus (a filovirus) in bats from Sierra Leone, and the discovery of the first full-length morbillivirus (a paramyxovirus) in bats from Brazil. We have also made important contributions to our understanding of fundamental questions, such as the number of undiscovered viruses that may exist in bats and other mammals.