Meet Our New Editor:
Arthi Kozhumam will serve as co-editor of the Duke One Health team news. Arthi is a senior undergraduate at Duke University (B.S Biology, B.A Global Health) and a first-year student in the Duke Global Health Institute’s Masters of Science in Global Health program.
Contact: arthi.kozhumam@duke.edu
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One Health Researchers Publish Reports of Environmental and Aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 Among Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients
Duke One Health team members led by Dr. Raquel Binder have recently published a study detailing their work in collecting and screening environmental and aerosol samples from hospitalized COVID-19 patients and their close contacts. Their study is important in understanding the timeline of fomite and aerosol transmission among COVID-19 patients.
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Professor Mai-Juan Ma, PhD (L) and Benjamin Anderson, MPH, PhD, CPH (R)
One Health Researchers Detect SARS-CoV-2 on Surfaces in Quarantine Rooms
One Health team members Dr. Mai-Juan Ma and Dr. Ben Anderson, along with collaborators, recently published a study on SARS-CoV-2 environmental contamination within 2 rooms of a quarantine hotel. RT-PCR was conducted on 22 surface samples (including the light switch, duvet cover, door handle, and toilet seat), with SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected on 36% of surfaces across both rooms. The study demonstrates extensive environmental contamination of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in less than 24 hours, as well as high viral load shedding of the two pre-symptomatic patients.
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One Health Team Member Develops a Web Application for Rapid Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessments
Lucas Rocha-Melogno, a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering at Duke, collaborated with colleagues at the University of Notre Dame in developing a web application to estimate the risk of aerosol transmission of infectious diseases. This educational tool can perform risk assessment for two main scenarios: 1) The risk of transmission of COVID-19 through aerosols indoors, and 2) The risk of contracting a diarrheal disease near open sewers.
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Sixth World One Health Congress
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has transformed the way that scientists communicate - including conferences such as the World One Health Congress, which will now be held entirely online. Organizers of the event emphasize that the growing globalization of health risks and importance of the human-animal interface in pathogen evolution highlight the need for a One Health approach. The conference will be held from October 30 - November 3, 2020. Registration for the conference is available here.
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Triangle Air Travel Impact Challenge 2021
Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the air travel industry, Duke and other Research Triangle partners (including UNC, NCSU, NCCU, RTI, and RDU airport) have joined together to sponsor an innovation challenge open to students, faculty, and employees. The four challenge themes are passenger transit, cleaning and touchpoint elimination, airport operations and employees, and aircraft safety, and teams of 2-8 can participate. Round 1 team abstracts are due October 15th, and $120,000 in grant funding will be awarded to the winning teams. Professor Gray presented the idea for this competition to Duke Vice President for Research, Lawrence Carin five months ago. Dr. Carin commissioned a committee led by Fioleda P. Kesseli, PhD, Exec. Director of Engineering Entrepreneurship at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering in designing the competition. Further information on registration and the challenge timeline is available here.
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Gregory C. Gray, MD, MPH, FIDSA
Prof. Greg Gray Delivers Grand Rounds Lecture Regarding Use of the One Health Approach to Mitigate Pandemics
At the invitation of pulmonologist Dr. Kevin Fennelly of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Greg Gray was honored to give a virtual Grand Rounds lecture to professionals at NIAID on September 11th. In his lecture, Dr. Gray suggested how, through the use of a One Health approach, NIAID might enjoy a more efficient way to detect and mitigate future pandemic respiratory virus threats. Dr. Gray also provided a short overview of the Duke One Health Team’s Research and Training programs and pointed to the number of novel viruses their work has already detected. He recommended that NIAID more overtly embrace the One Health approach in pandemic preparedness and training, and provided examples of how doing so could save money and be more sustainable. A link to the recorded lecture can be found here.
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Dr. Raquel Binder Receives a Travel Award for the ASTMH 2020 Annual Meeting
Dr. Binder, Senior Research Associate with Duke One Health, was recently awarded an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) 2020 Annual Meeting Travel Award. This unique award brings together the top tropical medicine researchers and trainees from all over the world, and hosts a yearly Annual Meeting for awardees to present their research abstracts. This highly selective award is supported in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Congratulations, Dr. Binder!
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New Postdoc Position Available at NCSU
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A new postdoc position is available through Dr. Siddhartha Thakur’s lab at NC State University. The position is funded for three years through a USDA-NIFA grant. Interested candidates should have a background in antimicrobial resistance and genomics. The link to the position can be found here.
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Updates on One Health Team Memberrs
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The Duke One Health Team Welcomes Ricardo Qi
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Ricardo has a Bachelor of Science in Preventive Medicine from Southeast University, China. He will graduate with a Master of Science in Global Health from DKU in 2021. His interests lie in environmental epidemiology, emerging infectious diseases, and virology. He has experience in both molecular diagnostics and data analysis. Ricardo currently works as a student laboratory assistant at the DKU One Health Laboratory in Kunshan, China.
Welcome, Ricardo!
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The Duke One Health Team Welcomes Dr. Sajid Umar
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In early November, Sajid Umar, DVM, M.Phil, PhD will join DKU as a new post-doctoral fellow and laboratory manager for the One Health Laboratory. He has considerable training and experience in veterinary medicine, veterinary pathology, virology, and molecular detection techniques. He is multilingual, having trained in various top universities in Pakistan, France, and Turkey, and has been proficient in publishing his work in the scientific literature. Dr. Umar looks forward to working with faculty, students, and staff at DKU.
Welcome, Dr. Umar!
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