{"id":52458,"date":"2018-09-10T09:47:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T16:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=52458"},"modified":"2018-09-11T10:14:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T17:14:05","slug":"wagner-biological-warfare-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wagner-biological-warfare-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"NAU disease ecologist receives $2.25 million grant to study potential biological warfare agent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francisella tularensis<\/em> is one of the most infectious pathogenic bacteria known to science\u2014so virulent, in fact, that it is considered a serious potential bioterrorist threat. Humans can contract respiratory tularemia\u2014a rare and deadly disease\u2014by inhaling as few as 10 airborne organisms.<\/p>\n

Northern Arizona University professor David Wagner<\/strong>, director of the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute\u2019s (PMI) Biodefense and Disease Ecology Center, was recently awarded a $2.25 million grant by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) for a three-year project to better understand the life cycle and behavior of F. tularensis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Wagner, who has been performing advanced DNA \u201cfingerprinting\u201d of this pathogen for almost 15 years, said that because some countries have developed biological warfare agents based on F. tularensis<\/em>, it is imperative that the U.S. government develop the tools and knowledge to protect Americans from this potential threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project is critical to the science of countering weapons of mass destruction because F. tularensis<\/em> is a potential biological warfare agent and its natural life cycle is poorly understood,\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n

Pathogen\u2019s dormant state puzzles scientists<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One of the most enigmatic behaviors of the pathogen is its ability to remain dormant, in what is called a \u201cviable but nonculturable\u201d state\u2014which means the bacteria is alive, but cannot be grown in the laboratory. That makes it much more difficult to study, because scientists can typically only study bacteria that can be cultured.<\/p>\n

By performing whole-genome sequencing studies, which examine the organism\u2019s entire genome, Wagner\u2019s team found strains that were nearly identical genetically but separated by up to hundreds of miles and 10 years apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, a bacteria species will get inside a host, such as an insect or rodent, and multiply. We\u2019d expect to see natural genetic mutations as a result,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cBut because these strains had not mutated as we would have expected if they\u2019d been inside a host, we theorized that the organisms were persisting in the environment in this dormant state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with co-principal investigator Jason Sahl<\/strong>, assistant professor and assistant director of PMI, and with long-term collaborators at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and Ume\u00e5 University, Wagner hopes to determine the environmental and genetic factors that contribute to the pathogen\u2019s ability to remain dormant in the environment.<\/p>\n

Although the bacteria are naturally occurring throughout the northern hemisphere, including Arizona, the number of reported cases in the United States is small, with only 230 cases in 2016, three of which occurred in Arizona. Humans can be infected through insect bites; by drinking contaminated water, which happens in developing countries such as Turkey; by handling infected animals; and by breathing aerosolized particles containing the bacteria. Humans cannot transmit the disease to other humans.<\/p>\n

There is no vaccine to prevent tularemia, also known as rabbit fever. The disease is treated with antibiotics, and Wagner\u2019s team is working on a related project funded by the DTRA studying the pathogen\u2019s antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n

Team known worldwide for developing phylogeny and phylogeography of the species<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Along with their Swedish collaborators, Wagner and his team are known worldwide for their work developing the phylogeny, or global family tree, of F. tularensis<\/em> and its phylogeography\u2014mapping where different groups of the species are found throughout the world and understanding the species\u2019 genetic diversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to get this project started,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cWe have an excellent team of scientists here at NAU and with our Swedish collaborators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both undergraduate and graduate students will be working in Wagner\u2019s lab on this project, generating data from DNA and RNA samples.<\/p>\n

Wagner is a disease ecologist whose primary research interests are the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. He uses genetic and genomic variation within pathogen, vector and host species to better understand the distribution, ecology, evolutionary history and trans\u00admission patterns of infectious diseases. Wagner, who has published more than 100 articles in scholarly journals, is one of the world\u2019s leading experts on several pathogens and infectious diseases, including plague and tularemia. Other recent grants include two from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention totaling $454,000 to study the prevalence of Burkholderia pseudomallei<\/em>, an infectious pathogen that causes melioidosis, in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.<\/p>\n

\n

\"NAU<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kerry Bennett |\u00a0Office of the Vice President for Research
\n(928) 523-5556 | kerry.bennett@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Francisella tularensis is one of the most infectious pathogenic bacteria known to science\u2014so virulent, in fact, that it is considered a serious potential bioterrorist threat. Humans can contract respiratory tularemia\u2014a rare and deadly disease\u2014by inhaling as few as 10 airborne organisms. Northern Arizona University professor David Wagner, director of the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute\u2019s (PMI)…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":52459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}