Comparative Genomics of Viruses
Coronaviruses
Worldwide, zoonotic diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
have a negative impact on public health, travel, and economies. Moreover most
microorganisms, including Category A pathogens, that have been co-opted for
weapons are known from their roles in zoonotic disease. We propose sequencing
coronaviruses isolated in the field from diverse animal hosts before, during,
and after the viruses crossed species barriers and or changed tissue tropism.
These data will provide researchers an unprecedented research resource for
understanding mechanisms, improving prevention and treatment of zoonotic
disease.
Influenza
There have been several interspecies shifts between swine, human and avian
hosts by many lineages of influenza, especially H3N2 and H1N2. To study
these events on a genomic level, we applied novel phylogenetic algorithms
suited to large-scale tree searches. Large-scale tree searches enable
comparison of thousands of genomes of many subtypes isolated from avian,
human, and swine from around the world.
Project Researchers
Daniel Janies, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)
David Spiro (Principal Investigator)
Elodie Ghedin (Principal Investigator)
Linda Saif, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)
Project Funding Participation
Novel Analytical and Empirical Approaches to the Origin and Prediction of Pathogenicity