Pathobiological Sciences News

What Is Killing Wisconsin’s Bald Eagles?

Posted on December 17, 2020 Audubon Magazine

When Tony Goldberg received an exuberant, enigmatic text message — “You gotta come into the lab!” — the epidemiologist turned his car around and headed straight back to his office at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He found his postdoc, Sam Sibley, transfixed by the computer monitor. Sibley had just finished running blood serum from a long-dead Bald Eagle through a powerful machine that searches out all traces of genetic material. Comparing the results to a database of all the world’s known viruses, the computer had spit back a surprising match.

Tom Friedrich, professor in the UW School of Veterinary Medicine, explains a consent form and the process of volunteers spitting in a small vial as part of a trial of a new COVID-19 saliva test

COVID Questions: Different Tests

Posted on December 10, 2020

Note: UW-Madison will be publishing answers to questions about COVID-19 and the pandemic each week in a COVID questions column. If you have a question, please email it to covid19update@uc.wisc.edu. This post was originally published here. …

UW–Madison Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka demonstrates how animal transmission studies are conducted for airborne viruses on a tour during an annual shutdown of the Influenza Research Institute in Madison, Wisconsin

Early Mutation in SARS-CoV-2 Virus in Europe Led To Its Domination Worldwide

Posted on November 12, 2020

In late 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged in China and quickly spread across the world, leading to the COVID-19 pandemic. In early 2020, that virus mutated, likely in Europe, and that mutation is now the …

Tracking Virus Mutations Reveals Success of Stay-at-Home Orders

Posted on November 9, 2020

A family tree of more than 200 variations in the virus that causes COVID-19 helps explain why two Wisconsin counties — just 75 miles apart, but far from the origins of the virus — had …

Andrew Bennett, a former graduate student in the UW–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, holds a cyclops leaf-nosed bat during field work in Uganda’s Kibale National Park, in search of viruses carried by the animals

First Relatives of Rubella Virus Discovered in Bats in Uganda and Mice in Germany

Posted on October 7, 2020

At night in a Ugandan forest, a team of American and African scientists take oral swabs from insect-eating cyclops leaf-nosed bats. In a necropsy room near the Baltic Sea, researchers try to determine what killed …

UW-Madison Study Could Spell the End for Yearly Flu Vaccine

Posted on September 28, 2020 NBC 15

As flu season gets underway, a new UW-Madison vaccine study could mean a yearly flu shot will not be necessary for much longer. Researchers are developing a new experimental vaccine which would be taken through the nose. The vaccine activates a different part of the immune system called T-cells, which can rapidly protect against multiple strains of influenza. Marulasiddapa Suresh, a UW-Madison professor of immunology who led the research, said he hopes the vaccine could take the guesswork out of fighting influenza and even create a universal flu vaccine.

UW Research Provides Alternative Approach To Flu, COVID-19 Vaccine Development

Posted on September 23, 2020 The Badger Herald

University of Wisconsin scientists published research on an alternative vaccine approach Tuesday, which could aid in efforts to create a universal flu vaccine and develop a COVID-19 vaccine. The research captures the capacity of a T-cell-based vaccine approach to provide broader protection of the immune system against respiratory illnesses, according to a UW news release. T-cells are a type of white blood cell that kills viral illnesses through an immune response. Professor of immunology in the School of Veterinary Medicine Marulasiddappa Suresh led the study.

three-dimensional, semi-transparent rendering of a whole influenza virus shows both the clover-like surface proteins on the outside of the virus, as well as the internal ribonucleoproteins on the inside

New Vaccine Strategy Harnesses ‘Foot Soldier’ T-Cells To Provide Protection Against Influenza

Posted on September 22, 2020

As Americans begin pulling up their sleeves for an annual flu vaccine, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have provided new insights into an alternative vaccine approach that provides broader protection against seasonal influenza. In a …

Mass Freshwater Mussel Die-offs Linked to New Virus

Posted on September 9, 2020

Until now, no one has been able to pin down why the world’s wild, freshwater mussels—often unnoticed and underappreciated engineers of stream and river health—are facing massive, unexpected die-offs. In a paper published today (September 2, 2020) …

Two scientist work side by side in lab under hood

Advancing the Fight Against a Global Pandemic

Posted on August 17, 2020

By studying the novel coronavirus from many angles and disciplines, UW–Madison is at the forefront of fighting COVID-19. School of Veterinary Medicine researchers are leading several of these studies, helping to address major challenges of …