3/20/2024 0 Comments Scientists report that creaturesA bat could carry a virus that is deadly to humans, but if it only lives for six months in a habitat far from people, eating a fruit that no other bats eat, the suite of traits overall makes a spillover unlikely. “The logic is that these traits are operating as a suite,” Han said. Their models include things like bat wingspan, diet, longevity, and much more. Toward that end, Carlson and other scientists are using predictive modeling and artificial intelligence to pinpoint specific genes in specific types of bats that could make the viruses they carry more or less likely to cross over. “We would like shortcuts to that information.” “We don’t want to go throw a virus in 200 bats in a lab setting and see what it does,” said Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University. “Wouldn’t it be great,” she added, “if we could predict which animals, and then manage those better, so that we don’t have to wait for spillover?”Īnimals carry an array of viruses, and one challenge for pandemic researchers is figuring out which ones might pose a potential threat to humans. What we tend to do with a lot of these pathogens, Han said, is “we wait for something to emerge, and then we figure out what carries it. ![]() But scientists like Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, suggest that a diverse set of strategies involving multiple animal species and multiple computer models - and a willingness to share new information widely, despite the risks that might carry - are key steps. Whether any of it will work to prevent the next outbreak remains a nagging uncertainty - particularly in the Covid-era - that has placed heightened scrutiny on facilities conducting animal pathogenic research. Together, and alongside the mouse, this represents the vanguard of pandemic research. But it’s worth the price, virologists and disease experts say, as are modern efforts to combine this ark of organisms with predictive, AI-driven computer models to help narrow the search for possible crossover points. None of this is easy, and the infrastructure needed for systematically studying and archiving data on these varied species is often far more complicated - and pricey - than it is for the ubiquitous mouse. And then, there are bats - another known nexus for spillover events, and one that remains a hotly debated subject in the hunt for answers to Covid’s origins. Others, including the chickens, cows and pigs that are raised as food, also supply viruses, which they pass between themselves and spread to other animals - including humans. Some of them, such as white-tailed deer, represent safe harbors for diseases that infect humans, such as Covid-19 and Lyme. A menagerie of other creatures are routinely recruited in the field and brought into laboratories in an ever-accelerating effort to understand, and possibly head off, the next contagion. To date, the facility has shipped more than 147,000 of these animals around the world, where they have been used to test vaccine candidates and Covid-19 treatments.įor all its utility in this pandemic, though, researchers know the mouse remains an imperfect and, by itself, inadequate tool for preparing for the next. And it turned out that Jackson Lab did have the ability to spin up a line of genetically modified mice that could replicate some of the aspects of a Covid-19 infection in humans. These species have been used to test vaccines and treatments, and more recently, scientists have been studying these creatures for clues about whether any of their viruses could infect humans - a process known as a spillover. facility - a hub for mouse breeding and research - had a lab mouse that could contract the illness.įor decades, scientists have studied non-human animals to better understand infectious diseases. ![]() The researcher was in lockdown due to the spread of the new pneumonia-like disease, and he wanted to know if the U.S. ![]() At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, while most Americans were still going out to dinner and living normal lives, a Chinese scientist sent an urgent request to the higher-ups at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.
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