Environmental Virulence of Pathogenesis in the Amazon
Understanding and controlling emerging infectious diseases before they reach epidemic proportions is important for preventing devastating effects on human health, promoting animal welfare, and improving species conservation. Discovering new interactions between disease-causing organisms, where they live, and the other microbes living with them provides insight into the basic understanding of how diseases emerge and spread.
If you are interested in working with us on this project, please contact us.
Challenges
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of communicable diseases caused by bacteria and parasites that often result in pain, disfiguration, and death for those afflicted. NTDs are found in 150 countries (mainly tropical and subtropical areas) and affect more than 1 billion people, especially in marginalized populations and poverty stricken areas.
Those most vulnerable to NTDs and their consequences are women, children, and those living without access to adequate health care. Disease burden can result in substantial illness, limitation of economic advancement, and prejudice from social stigmas, all of which leads toward human suffering.
Buruli ulcer
While there are numerous NTDs, the World Health Organization (WHO) focuses on twenty that, if eliminated, would result in positive global impact. Buruli ulcer is one such disease. Reported in over 30 countries for the past 70 years, Buruli ulcer is a chronic, debilitating infection caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans that destroys skin, soft tissues, and bone. This pathogen is closely related to those microorganisms that result in tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae). Although the modes of transmission and disease dynamics are understood for tuberculosis and leprosy, it is not clear how humans are infected by M. ulcerans.
It is thought that the risk for Buruli ulcer is elevated when individuals are exposed to an environment with increased M. ulcerans populations. There is also uncertainty in pinpointing ecological reservoirs from which people can become infected with M. ulcerans. For more information on Buruli ulcer provided by the WHO, please see:
(https://www.who.int/news-room/facts-in-pictures/detail/buruli-ulcer )
Path to Overcoming Challenges
Work continues to discover the mechanisms that allow M. ulcerans to live in and move around in the environment. Previous assessments of global M. ulcerans genetic diversity reveal the Guiana Shield to be a hotspot of molecular evolution. The disease has been present in French Guiana, a French territory northeast of Brazil since 1969 with a low incidence rate (mean 4.3 per 100,000 over the past 45 years). Yet, cases of this neglected tropical disease may have low reporting in the Amazon region due to limited local resources for detection, lack of knowledge about the disease, or incidence in isolated populations.
This project tests how M. ulcerans has evolved to produce a novel molecular weapon that it uses to successfully live in environments where risk of humans contacting it is highest. This molecular weapon is the toxin responsible for Buruli ulcer. Pathogens like the one that causes Buruli ulcer constantly interact with communities of other microbes (microbiomes), yet it is poorly understood how M. ulcerans persists and replicates in environmental and host microbiomes.
Contact
If you have any questions or if you would like to collaborate, please contact us by email (see email below) or completing the adjacent form.
Email
evopath.amazonia@gmail.com