Monica Ponder, a professor of food science and technology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Kathleen Alexander, a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, are studying the impact of bacteria from human food scraps that travel through ecosystems in both Botswana and the United States. These bacteria are often associated with fruits, vegetables, and raw or undercooked meats and can spread through the ecosystem from scraps being fed to companion animals or livestock.

These food scraps also get consumed by wildlife, providing another avenue for transmission and method for disease to establish itself in a wildlife population before spreading further.  

Campylobacter may also be a leading cause of diarrheal illness in Botswana, and recent collaborations of the Alexander and Ponder labs have shown that wildlife may also harbor Campylobacter. Wildlife often venture into the landfill sites and scavenge for food, rummaging through the garbage before returning to the wilderness.

The National Science Foundation funded the research project with $1.2 million in funding over two years particularly because of the focus on understanding how antibiotic resistance moves through the systems in the two countries with varied public antibiotic access and differences in land use.  READ MORE>>

Researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech have found unique interactions in the cells of five mosquito species that could be a roadmap to removing the ability to transmit malaria and other diseases in the future. The findings were recently published in Nature Communications.

People often use insecticides to spray as much as possible to kill mosquitoes. But this form of control doesn’t discriminate between good and bad insects and also builds resistance among mosquitoes and insects that survive through natural selection and mutations.

After years of relative success controlling mosquito populations in this manner, it is now being reevaluated due to a significantly decreasing effectiveness and not being ecologically friendly.

“We have to constantly invent new insecticides,” said Igor Sharakhov, one of the researchers on the project, a professor of entomology and an affiliated faculty with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and CeZAP. “With genomic approaches showing more promise, we can generate so-called gene drives and create a construct that could either suppress the mosquito population or render it incapable of transmitting disease.”  READ MORE>>

Mohamed Seleem,  the Tyler J. and Frances F. Young Chair in Bacteriology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named director of the Center for One Health Research.

The Center for One Health Research (COHR) is a collaboration between the veterinary college and the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, both of which have interest in cooperative research and scholarship related to infectious diseases.  

Both colleges follow the One Health philosophy — the concept that animal health, human health, and the environment are closely linked, requiring professionals in these fields to collaborate to improve overall health. READ MORE>>