ALABAMA: Univ of S AL faculty member receives $2.59M grant to study infection dynamics of an emerging tick-borne virus
Tick-borne infections can lead to serious illnesses – and even death – in people and pets. To create effective treatments for these diseases, scientists first must figure out the basic infection biology of the ticks they study. Meghan Hermance, an assistant professor at the University of South Alabama, recently received a $2.59 million five-year NIH grant to study the infection dynamics of a tick-borne bunyavirus called severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus or SFTSV.
“One major focus of this research is to understand how the bunyavirus survives the molting process between tick life stages and the timeline during which the virus disseminates between organs within the tick body,” Hermance said. “In other words, we want to determine where does the virus reside in the tick body before it ends up in the tick salivary glands and ultimately gets transmitted to the next host the tick feeds on.”
A second focus of the research is to define the minimum amount of time an infected tick needs to feed in order to transmit the bunyavirus to a vertebrate host, Hermance said, noting that she and her colleagues also will examine the initial immune response that occurs in the host's skin at the feeding site of the infected tick.