CREATE-NEO in conjunction with the Sealy Center for Vector-borne and Zoonotic Diseases is pleased to introduce the first edition of our quarterly newsletter. Our aim for these newsletters is to create a platform to inform and update the scientific community of the events taking place in our Centers. We hope that our readers find this informative and engaging.
The Coordinating Research on Emerging Arboviral Threats Encompassing the Neotropics (CREATE-NEO) project provides a nimble and flexible network of surveillance sites in Central and South America coupled to cutting-edge modeling approaches in order to anticipate and counter emerging arboviruses.
The Sealy Center aims to harness, leverage, and expand the complimentary functions of the Institute for Human infections and Immunity (IHII), Center for Tropical Diseases (CTD), Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (CBEID) and the Western Gulf Center of Excellence for Vector Borne Diseases (WGCVBD), to investigate vector-borne diseases internationally through basic, applied, clinical and field research, education, and service.
CREATE-NEO NETWORK
Faculdade de Medicina de Sao Jose do Rio Preto (FAMERP) is a public tuition-free higher education institution in the city of São José do Rio Preto, Brazil, which offers courses in Nursing, Medicine and Psychology as well PhD Program in Health Science. FAMERP, is the leading biomedical research institute in the state of Sao Paulo, with particular strength in arbovirology, emerging infectious diseases and development of diagnostic assays for arboviral infections. Dr. Nogueira, the Site Leader, has been collaborating for the past 9 years with Dr. Vasilakis.
Fundação de Medicina Tropical Dr. Heitor Vieira Dourado (FMT-HVD) is a referral center for the diagnosis and treatment of infectious, parasitic and dermatological diseases, admitting in their facilities patients referred by the health network of Manaus and from the countryside of the Amazonas State, as well as from neighboring states and countries. Dr. Lacerda, the Site Leader, has been collaborating for the past 6 years with Drs. Vasilakis and Hanley and currently serves as the PI of the Brazilian component of our current NIH-funded ICIDR (Vasilakis-PI, Hanley, co-PI). CREATE-NEO will exploit both the research experience and strengths of the consortium investigators to investigate the mechanisms of arbovirus transmission between humans and wildlife in Manaus, Brazil.
Our future newsletters will detail the ongoing progress of other CREATE-NEO sites.
visit to PANAMA
Members of the CREATE-NEO team including Nikos Vasilakis (Principal Investigator), Kathryn Hanley (co-Principal Investigator), Shannan Rossi (Investigator), and Yasmeen Abu-Rezeq (Program Manager), visited Panama to meet and collaborate with colleagues at Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies. The trip consisted of touring, collaborating, and interviewing the Gorgas - CREATE-NEO colleagues, and participating in the field work efforts in the Darien Peninsula of Panama. The three different teams in the Darien trip include the non-human primate team led by Dr. Blas Armien, the entomology team led by Dr. Anayansi Valderrama, and the human cohort and recruitment team led by Dr. Sandra Lopez and Jean-Paul Carrera.
The Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies is a leading medical research institution dedicated to researching diseases in the tropics and practicing preventative medicine in Panama since 1921. It is historically known and named after Dr. William Gorgas, who eradicated yellow fever in Panama and this accomplishment allowed for the construction of the Panama Canal. Today, Gorgas is known for its virology, genomics, entomology, immunology, high quality laboratories, as well as its contribution to Panamanian public health efforts.
|NON-HUMAN PRIMATE GROUP|
A large component of the CREATE-NEO work involves the surveillance of non-human primates for emerging pathogens and diseases. The trip to Darien consisted of NHP howler monkey sampling near the forest edges for a total of 5 days. Sera samples and data obtained from each NHP are used to monitor the larger effort towards disease surveillance in the tropics.
|mOSQUITO cOLLECTION|
The mosquito collections in the Darien peninsula consisted of setting traps at night and then collecting them early in the morning. "This is the most synchronized, efficient and effective vector collection team that I have ever had the privilege to work with. Their data will reveal both the current distribution of disease vectors in the landscape as well at the impacts of land use and land cover change on these distributions"- Dr. Kathryn Hanley
|HUMAN COHORT |
The third part of the CREATE-NEO effort is the human cohort study and surveillance investigations. The team surveyed residents in the Darien Peninsula for epidemiological data, environmental factors, as well as disease symptoms. The resident survey effort continued for 5 days as well, and is a part of a several year-long longitudinal study.
"The human cohort in Aruza has been established since 2012. Aruza is a community of around 600 inhabitants dedicated to agriculture and cattle ranching. Arbovirus outbreaks have been reported in Aruza since 2010, we have determined risk factors for these infections and discovered several new arboviruses." Jean Paul Carrera, Human Cohort Investigator.
|MEET CREATE-NEO's PILOT GRANT AWARDEES|
Dr. Daniel Aguiar
Pathogen emergence is generally initiated by spillover of a pathogen from wildlife into livestock or humans, which which can be mediated by vectors such a ticks. Dr. Aguiar and Dr. Han (Cary Institute of Ecosystem studies) will utilize a novel combination of monitoring via camera traps, next generation sequencing and machine learning to reveal which tick species may facilitate spillover of key arboviruses in the Pantanal region of Brazil. Microclimate will be analyzed in conjunction with remotely sensed abiotic variables to characterize environmental predictors of transmission risk posed by ticks to domestic species in this region The study benefits CREATE-NEO by expanding capacity for investigation of tick-borne viruses.
Dr. Betania Drumond
Dr. Drumond along with colleagues at the Verena Consortium hypothesize that recent yellow fever outbreaks reveal a previously unappreciated level of connection, via mosquitoes, between humans and NHPs in eastern Brazil, which may lead to a spillover of additional arboviruses. Their objectives are to characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics and ecological drivers of yellow fever virus (YFV) circulation in NHPs and investigate whether Mayaro virus (MAYV) also broke out in NHPs concurrently with the YFV outbreak. They will quantify active infection or previous exposure of free-living NHPs to YFV or MAYV by RT-PCR and neutralizing antibody assays, respectively. Then they will identify the biotic and abiotic drivers of viral infection using spatiotemporal statistical models, with local environmental factors and new host-level traits as explanatory variables. The goal of the proposal is to predict the possible hosts and geographic extent of YFV and MAYV transmission and dynamics.
CREATE-NEO Publications
Into the woods: Changes in mosquito community composition and presence of key vectors at increasing distances from the urban edge in urban forest parks in Manaus, Brazil
Why Did ZIKV Perinatal Outcomes Differ in Distinct Regions of Brazil? An Exploratory Study of Two Cohorts
Re-emergence of yellow fever in the neotropics—quo vadis?
The vertical stratification of potential bridge vectors of mosquito-borne viruses in a central Amazonian forest bordering Manaus, Brazil.
Fatal Outcome of Ilheus Virus in the Cerebrospinal Fluid of a Patient Diagnosed with Encephalitis
Flavivirus Infection Associated with Cerebrovascular Events
Case study of two post vaccination SARS-CoV-2 infections with P1 variants in CoronaVac Vaccinees in Brazil
Lack of evidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spillover in free-living neotropical non-human primates, Brazil
|MEET THE SEALY CENTER'S FY21 and fy22 PILOT GRANT AWARDEES|
Dr. Jere McBride - FY21 Recipient
The long-term goal of Dr. McBride's project is to develop a stable and effective E. ch. multivalent subunit vaccine and to define the protective mechanisms of vaccine-induced immunity. The objective of his proposal is to evaluate protection provided by novel E. ch. subunit vaccine candidates using mRNA vaccination. His proposal hypothesizes that recently identified novel E. ch. secreted effector proteins will provide protection against challenge using mRNA vaccination approach. This investigation will generate data to support a comprehensive strategy aimed at identification of protective antigens in established in vivo models in an overall effort to establish a preclinical mRNA subunit vaccine for HME. The aim of the proposal is to evaluate high priority novel E. ch. protective proteins using mRNA vaccination.
Dr. Liu Hua - FY21 Recipient
Dr. Liu's previous work provided the first evidence that loss of anti-aging molecule Sirt6 results in progression of glomerular injury in the kidney and impairs corneal epithelial wound healing. Based on this information, the proposal hypothesizes that ZIKV infection induces the dysregulation of retinal progenitor cell phenotype switch and vascular development, leading to the activation of apoptotic and necroptotic pathways and subsequent neuronal and vascular degeneration. They aim to test this by using single-cell RNA sequencing technology to characterize retinal cell types in P5 and P8 retinas and test if ZIKV induces delayed or abnormal formation of retinal neurons, glia and vascular cells; and identify potential pathways leading to abnormal phenotype switch and cell death.
Dr. Bin Gong - FY21 Recipient
Dr. Gong's proposal hypothesized that domain III of West Nile virus (WNV) E protein (DIII)34enriched, antigen-presenting cell (APC)-targeted exosome (APC-DIII-Exo) will serve as a novel, effective and safe candidate for the development of vaccine against WNV. To test this hypothesis, they aim to generate a DIII-protein enriched Exo using the XStamp-CD40L lentivirus vector, to test the uptake of APC-DIII-Exos by APC cells and their underlying mechanisms and lastly, to assess the immunogenicity of APC-DIII-EXOs in vitro.
Dr. Alejandro Castellanos - FY22 Recipient
Cryptosporidiosis is estimated to give rise to over 100 million cases of diarrheal disease worldwide causing an estimated 750,000 per year within the U.S. To date, there is no vaccine against this infection. Dr. Castellanos’s proposal hypothesized that infection with attenuated CpNDK-Knock down will lead to protective immunity against subsequent infections. It also proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of developing and propagating a live attenuated strain. These studies will provide the basis for a full NIH proposal to develop one or more attenuated vaccines for preclinical and eventually clinical studies. have 15 years of experience working in molecular parasitology. In the last years, his laboratory has developed novel molecular approaches to identify drug targets and vaccine candidates. In this study, they will generate an attenuated Cryptosporidium to conduct vaccination studies in animal models. Their data will be useful for the development of novel vaccines against parasitic infections.
Dr. Miguel Cabada - FY22 Recipient
Dr. Cabada’s proposal hypothesized that emergent and re-emergent arboviruses have circulated widely between endemic areas in Peru and caused outbreaks of febrile illnesses in Cusco without being recognized. To test this hypothesis, they will evaluate serum samples from subjects with undifferentiated febrile illnesses of ≤ 5 days of duration collected for routine surveillance in Ministry of Health centers of the Cusco region between March 2020 and June 2021. Samples will be evaluated by multiplex reverse transcriptase PCR for the presence of seven arboviruses. Selected positive samples will be subjected to next generation sequencing for the identification of emerging and re-emerging viruses and phylogenetic analysis. They also aim to determine the clinical presentation and epidemiology of arboviruses causing acute undifferentiated febrile illness in the jungle of the Cusco region of Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic.
SEALY CENTER FY22 FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS
Divya Mirchandani
Divya is a second year PhD student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UTMB. Prior to starting with graduate school, Divya acquired herx master’s degree in biotechnology from Florida Institute of Technology, and had been working as a biocontainment research associate in the World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses at UTMB. She is interested in studying infectious diseases, specifically arthropod-borne viruses. Divya's current research focuses on cross-protection between flaviviruses, specifically the effect of pre-existing dengue virus immunity against yellow fever virus infection, and its impact on transmission via mosquitoes.
Nicholas Pittner
Nick is a Presidential Scholar and second-year student in the Human Pathophysiology and Translational Medicine Program at UTMB. His research focuses on the tick-borne pathogen, Ehrlichia chaffeensis, in the laboratory of Dr. Jere McBride. Specifically, Nick is investigating how the TRP120 effector protein of Ehrlichia chaffeensis mimics human ligands to hijack host signaling pathways.
SEMINAR SERIES
The Sealy Center for Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases which is anchored by the NIH-funded Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases titled “The Coordinating Research on Emerging Arboviral Threats Encompassing the Neotropics (CREATE-NEO),” has established a virtual seminar series to raise awareness on the emergence and consequences of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases for public health. The Center’s seminar series is held every second Tuesday of the month. The seminar schedule is listed below. For additional information, please visit CREATE-NEO.
Organizers: Kathryn Hanley (khanley@nmsu.edu) | Nikos Vasilakis (nivasila@utmb.edu) 11am CST | 5pm GERMANY | Midnight SINGAPORE 11am CST
Credits:
Created with an image by Alexas_Fotos - "barbary ape barbary macaque monkey"