Ongoing Collaborations
Viral Emergence Research Institute (Verena)
Dr. Seifert is a Co-PI on the National Science Foundation-funded Biology Integration Institute Award to support the Viral Emergence Research Institute hosted at Georgetown University. This consortium of interdisciplinary scientists is working to link molecular mechanisms of host-virus interactions to predict host-virus dynamics at a planetary scale. The team tackling this grand challenge includes data scientists, computational biologists, experimental virologists, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists.
Find out more about the research with Verena here: www.viralemergence.org | @viralemergence
Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases – Palouse
This collaborative study between the MEZAP lab and the Eco-Epidemiology of Zoonotic Diseases lab is investigating rodents as reservoirs of zoonotic pathogens across agro-ecosystems in the Palouse. This work is in the early phases, but local undergraduate and graduate students should contact either myself or Dr. Pilar Fernandez for opportunities to contribute to field sampling in the summer and laboratory-based research year-round with impact on local rural communities! Find out more about research in the Eco-Epidemiology of Zoonotic Diseases Laboratory here:
Dr. Pilar Fernandez
PI, Eco-Epidemiology of Zoonotic Diseases Laboratory
Assistant Professor, Paul G. Allen School for Global Health
Washington State University
Center for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases – East and Central Africa
Dr. Seifert is currently collaborating with Drs. Isaac Ngere and Njenga Kariuki to study viral dynamics in camel populations and camel herders across seasons in northern Kenya through funding with an NIH CREID Pilot award. Camels are a critical source of food stability in region where more than 4 million domestic camels are kept for dairy and meat production. Using an age-structured cohort sampling scheme, Drs. Isaac Ngere and Njenga Kariuki have demonstrated that camels in Kenya are competent reservoirs of Clade C MERS-CoV with transmission to humans. The NIH CREID pilot award will support a value-added study in which we delve into these samples to detect and study virus community dynamics at this proven interface for zoonotic transmission between humans and livestock.
Find out more about the exciting work by our partners in WSU CREID-ECA here: https://creid-network.org/research-centers/creid-eca
