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The “pre-emergence” phase of pandemics is the focus of a new center funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and led by the University of California, Davis. The NSF Center for Pandemic Insights (NSF CPI) aims to harness new technologies and develop sensing to detect, investigate, and ultimately prevent pandemics at their source.

Mathematical models are an important tool that the EpiCenter uses to understand the mechanisms associated with emerging infectious diseases. Although the thought of the many equations involved may be intimidating, the bigger picture is that these models can help to represent the transmission of viruses from one species or individual to another, and how that varies under different, complex conditions. In a dynamic environment affected by climate change and land use alterations, understanding the ways these changes can affect disease intensity and transmission is critical.

A study published today in the International Journal of Primatology and led by the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis, confirms living Skywalker gibbons in Myanmar. It was the endangered primate’s love songs that alerted scientists that their home extends beyond China and that Myanmar has the largest population of endangered Skywalker gibbons on Earth.

In December of 2022, Professor Christine K. Johnson was selected to serve as a U.S. Science Envoy by the U.S. Department of State. Established in 2011, the Science Envoy Program selects prominent U.S. scientists to travel around the world and build new connections with peer scientists in other countries, encourage policies to support science that benefits society, and forge new international collaborations.

While SARS-CoV-2 has been the focus of everyone’s attention since December of 2019 and continues to impact people’s health around the world, coronaviruses are not a new concern to those studying and responding to emerging diseases and outbreaks. Prior to the pandemic, outbreaks caused by coronaviruses, such as MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-1, presented threats to public health and safety.

Last week, Dr. Christine K. Johnson, Professor and Director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics, spoke as an expert panelist at the "Shared Decision-Making: A Catalyst for Real-World Research Solutions" event.

The fellowship is designed for US doctoral students, professional students and postdoctoral fellows, as well as foreign postdoctoral fellows from affiliated sites in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

In November of 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) arrived in Peru, triggering massive pelican and sea lion die-offs. This publication reports genomic characterization of HPAI/H5N1 viruses in two species of marine mammals (dolphins and sea lions) and three species of seabirds (sanderlings, pelicans, and cormorants). These viruses are rapidly accruing mutations that warrant further examination and highlight an urgent need for active local surveillance to manage outbreaks and limit spillover into other species, including humans.

In June of this year, the EpiCenter for EID Intelligence team gathered for the 2023 CREID Annual Meeting, a network-level meeting that brought together all ten CREID Research Centers, the coordinating center, representatives from NIAID, and numerous stakeholder groups. This year, fifteen members of the EpiCenter attended the meeting, providing an invaluable opportunity for our project leads from Peru, Uganda, and the United States to meet in person for the first time since the project's launch in 2020.

A virus previously found only in bats was detected in the antibodies of people screened for exposure to sarbecoviruses between 2017 and 2020 in rural Myanmar in Southeast Asia, according to a study from the University of California, Davis and collaborators in Myanmar and Singapore. The work is published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

We are pleased to announce Ashley Contreras and Kiara Alvarez as our 2023 One Health Fellowship recipients! As a part of the fellowship, these students will gain research experience and receive mentorship to support their career development. We look forward to them joining us this January. This fellowship is supported by the One Health Institute DEI Competitive Grants Program. Learn more about this fellowship:

Professor Christine Kreuder Johnson in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine joins six other distinguished scientists and engineers who will serve as U.S. Science Envoys in 2023, the U.S. Department of State announced today (Dec. 6).

New publication led by OHI's Dr. Tierra Smiley Evans highlights the importance of conducting surveillance of peri-urban primates in regions of high arbovirus transmission.

Myanmar is among the least studied but most heavily forested region in Asia, and CHIKV, ZIKV, DENV and JEV are highly endemic in humans. Scientists investigated whether Myanmar peri-urban primates, living near the largest urban city of Yangon, are exposed to arboviruses of public health concern and could be sources of spillover or recipients of spillback of human pathogenic arboviral diseases.