IGERT - University of Hawaii

Man bites mosquito

admin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:42:56 +0000

IGERT Professor Durrell Kapan recently published a paper, Man Bites Mosquito: Understanding the Contribution of Human Movement to Vector-Borne Disease Dynamics, in PLoS One. Published August 26, the paper highlights how daily commuting patterns in mega-cities may be a critically overlooked factor in understanding the resurgence of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, infecting 50-100 million people annually.

Kapan and Adams discuss their research

“Even a small number of infected people who remain active can move a virus such as dengue between different parts of the community, where it will be picked up by mosquitos and, after an incubation period, be passed on to another unsuspecting passerby,” says Kapan. “Our research examined whether the standard practice of eliminating mosquito vectors at residences would be sufficient to control dengue if other areas in the community still had several large patches of mosquitos that could become infected by commuters.”

To undertake this study, Kapan teamed up with mathematician Ben Adams from the University of Bath (UK), with support of UH Mānoa’s Pacific Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research Center of Biomedical Research Excellence program and as participating faculty in IGERT ECPB.

“Our primary objective with this paper is to prompt researchers, public health practitioners and others concerned with vector control to look beyond the traditional epidemiological definition of a transmission cluster based on home address, and consider novel ways to control community transmission of vector-borne diseases that account for great morbidity and mortality worldwide,” says Kapan. “Even a short visit to an infected patch of mosquitos, say at a lunch venue or open market, may be enough to keep the virus circulating.”

Adds Adams, “When someone gets infected we need to look at their recent travel patterns to figure out from which group of mosquitoes they got the disease, and to which groups they may have passed it on.”

IGERT supported conservation education with Thai schools

admin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:33:23 +0000

Summer 2009 saw a collaboration between IGERT and the UH College of Education (COE) result in dengue control curricula being taught in several Thai schools. With IGERT assistance several of Dr. Pauline Chinn’s COE students have expanded their science curricula to include new lessons on mosquito life cycle and dengue fever. Increasing the relevance of such place-based education enhances the potential knowledge transfer, continuance and public health relevance of this curriculum.

Thai place-based science school project video

Thip Oatthivech, an East West Center/COE master student, initiated a mosquito curriculum in her rural Thai high school near the Laotian border. Students combined classroom instruction with group presentations and village field trips to collect and raise mosquito larvae. IGERT Associate Rose Sutrabutra, an East West Center/COE doctoral student, is working with elementary school teachers in Bangkok and Lampang in north-west Thailand to implement a similar program.

These collaborations will be the basis for expanded IGERT outreach and mosquito trapping projects in northern Thailand with Chiang Rai’s Mae Fah Luang University (MFL), also providing training opportunities for IGERT students in community outreach.

In related matters a cooperative agreement is soon to be signed with MFL and the UH Office of Public Health Studies to enhance that Thai university’s fledgling public health program. COE’s Chinn is also receiving a 3-year federal grant supporting place-based science teacher education.

Transdisiplnary Collaboration Yields $1.4 million NSF Grant

admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:16:19 +0000

A collaboration between Division of Ecology & Health, East West Center’s Research Program and UH’s Globalization Research Center recently resulted in a three-year, $1.4 million award from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) relatively new program, Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems. The project, titled “Coupled Natural-Human Systems and Emerging Infectious Diseases: Anthropogenic environmental change and avian influenza in Vietnam,” includes a partnership with Vietnam’s Hanoi University of Agriculture (HUA).

2005 news feature on avian influenza in Vietnam

Development of this uniquely transdisciplinary research effort involved nearly 3 years of brainstorming and preliminary research by a multi-disciplinary team led by Dr. Jeff Fox of East West Center. Drs. Bruce Wilcox and Nancy Lewis, EWC Research Program Director began discussing a collaborative program bridging social sciences and natural sciences to come up with new approaches for investigating the causes of emerging infectious diseases. In 2005 Wilcox and Lewis convened the workshop on “Social Ecological Systems and Emerging Infectious Diseases” supported by NIH’s Roadmap to the Future Program funding. The results were published in a special feature issue of the journal EcoHealth. Subsequent funding ($3.4 million by NSF IGERT for the graduate research and training program managed by Ecology and Health, “Integrating Ecology, Conservation and Pathogen Biology”) was instrumental to maintaining the momentum of the collaboration leading to this awarded grant.

Said Wilcox the award “validates the several years invested in breaking new ground by through cross-disciplinary collaboration essential to identifying the mechanisms underlying the emergence of new diseases like avian influenza (H5N1).”

The research team will examine how urbanization, agricultural change and habitat alteration correlate with outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry in Vietnam. IGERT ECPB graduate students will gain valuable training experience working with international researchers on emerging infectious disease linkages with human and socio-ecological aspects. The senior research team includes IGERT faculty Jeff Fox (EWC), Bruce Wilcox (UH), Durrell Kapan (UH), Tran Duc Vien HUA, Nguyen Huu Nam (HUA), Jim Spencer (UH), Sumeet Saksena (EWC), Melissa Finucane (EWC), Ian Pagano (UH), Zhe Li (EWC) and Dr. Michael Epprecht.

Out of 94 proposals this collaborative project was one of only 13 recommended for NSF funding. A reviewer commented “A key original contribution is to attempt to apply the environmental risk transition framework to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases caused by evolving human activities. The work is potentially transformative…” Another reviewer commented “the education plan is strong with a good deal of synergy achieved through the use of students involved in the IGERT program at Hawaii…”

Project Fellowships:
Three doctoral fellowships open to foreign students are available for this project. For further information contact the East West Center.

Blog mentions IGERT researchers

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:01:23 +0000

Recently posted on Resilience Science: Are Epidemic Early Warnings, Really “Early” Warnings?
Excerpt:

One point missing in the debate however, is the fact that other emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) - such as avian influenza (H5N1), Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and West Nile viral encephalitis - emerge not only as the result of changes in host dynamics or in the pathogen. On the contrary, a range of underlying social- ecological changes such as land use change, deforestation and biodiversity loss seem to contribute to the rise of EIDs globally.

Durell Kapan and colleagues article on the social-ecological dimensions of avian influenza is a nice synthesis of how land-use change contributes to increases in H5N1…

Student presentation award

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:23:36 +0000

At the recent Hawaii American Society for Microbiology Spring meeting, IGERT Associate Esther Volper’s presentation - Validation of a multiplex microsphere-based immunoassay for measurement of anti-dengue virus immunoglobulin - won 3rd place in the Ph.D. category. She was also awarded a $500 travel award.

Esther is currently working on developing a new rapid multiplex microsphere-bead based immunoassay for anti-Dengue virus antibodies. In her spare time she participates in triathlons. Esther was an intercollegiate surf team competitor at UC Santa Barbara and a rock-climbing instructor while at the University of Iowa.

[Esther's research was supported in part by the Myra & Jean Kent Angus Foundation, DOD (W81XWH-07-2-0073), and NCRR, NIH (G12RR003061 and P20RR018727). Vivek R Nerurkar PhD is Esther's advisor.]

Navy entomologist in training

admin — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:52:51 +0000

Jon prepares to hoist
a mosquito trap

IGERT Associate Jon Winchester was awarded a coveted US Navy grant covering his active duty salary, housing, medical insurance and benefits while he pursues a master’s degree in entomology.

Jon, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is studying mosquito ecology and has assisted IGERT faculty on several research trips in Hawaii and Thailand. He traveled extensively though Southeast Asia and the Pacific while with the US Army’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

Upon graduating in 2010 he will be commissioned as a medical entomologist in the US Navy Medical Service Corps. His responsibilities may include assessing the distribution and habitats of mosquitoes in the control of vector borne diseases like malaria or dengue fever. Potential assignments range from the Navy Entomology Center of Excellence (Jacksonville, Fla.) to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, Ga.) to Navy Infectious Diseases Laboratories in Indonesia, Egypt or Peru.

In his spare time Jon enjoys the writings of Pulitzer prize winner Nicholas D. Kristof who covers global health, poverty and gender issues in the developing world.

Life enlightening voyage

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:57:37 +0000

The Honolulu Advertiser profiled several crew members - including IGERT Fellow Angela Fa’anunu - on the voyaging canoe’s Hokule’a South Pacific journey to Palmyra Atoll. [NOTE: Angela was incorrectly identified as an East West Center student]:

For 31-year-old Kaimuki resident Angela Fa’anunu, it was this: The world is round.

Fa’anunu was one of a dozen crew members who guided the voyaging canoe’s Hokule’a on its 1,000-mile journey south to Palmyra Atoll last week.

After flying back to Honolulu on Saturday, she and fellow crew members Pauline Sato and Nahaku Kalei spent yesterday afternoon at Maunalua Bay reflecting on what was for each a life-changing experience.

“There was one night when I looked out and it was the clearest sky I had ever seen,” Fa’anunu said. “I could see all the different constellations — Aries, Taurus, Gemini. I could see the path of the sun and the moon. That night was a learning experience because it brought everything together.”

And as she watched the stars slowly change positions over the course of her watch, all those lessons she studiously noted in her tablet back home in Tonga suddenly clarified in the night sky.

“I realized, ‘Wow, the Earth really is round,’ ” Fa’anunu said, laughing. “You can study and read books, but when you’re immersed in an experience like that, you understand the truth of it in a really intimate way.”

That night crystallized many truths for Fa’anunu. She thought about the ancient Hawaiians who understood the stars, winds and tides as never-ending narratives that, for those who cared to pay attention, made sense of the world and how to traverse it. And she thought about her teachers at the Polynesian Voyaging Society who reclaimed that knowledge for future generations.

Fa’anunu, an IGERT fellow studying urban and regional planning, said she hopes to take what she’s learned back to her native Tonga to help children there better appreciate their world and to accept responsibility for its stewardship…

Fa’anunu and others were also interviewed in a 2-part video broadcast on that voyage.

Intensive mosquito education

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:16:35 +0000

Esther probes a Florida marsh
for mosquito larvae

Four IGERT students recently completed a 2-week training workshop on mosquito identification at one of the world’s largest research institutions on the control of biting insects. Despite a numbing cold spell, Amy Henry, Argon Steel, Panpim Thongsripong and Esther Volper went on field trips collecting mosquito larvae, learned and used different mosquito traps, and attended classes on mosquito-borne diseases on the sprawling 38-acre pine forest and salt marsh adjacent to the Florida Medical Entomological Laboratory (FMEL). In covering all North American mosquitoes, students learned the often subtle differences distinguishing one species from another. The course concluded with a practical exam where students had to identify five separate species of adult and larval mosquitoes.

Besides a mix of graduate students, local mosquito control personnel also attended the class. Panpim Thongsripong, a Thai national, was quickly introduced to regional dialects when dealing with the distinctive southern drawl of local attendees. This annual class was highly recommended by all the attending students.

IGERT’s first PhD

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:57:07 +0000

Jenny’s February 27th thesis defense

Jennifer K. Schultz, IGERT ECPB’s first PhD, compiled an impressive list of awards during her 4+ years at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. She has been awarded close to $300,000 in research, travel and fellowship grants. Besides her 2-year IGERT fellowship Jenny has received:

A 3-year EPA (STAR) Science To Achieve Results stipend,

A $40,000 NOAA Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument award,

Several UH fellowships.

Her interest in marine biology was spawned by a high school visit to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from the College of Charleston, Jenny later cut her teeth in DNA analysis while working as a forensic biologist with the Illinois State Police.

In earning her PhD on the “Conservation genetics of the Hawaiian monk seal,” Jenny found through DNA analysis that the Hawaiian monk seal has the lowest genetic diversity of any mammal ever studied. Her findings - recently published in the Journal of Heredity - showed that low genetic diversity increases the risk that an epidemic could hurt the population. It also likely means the species is less able to cope with environmental changes. The Hawaiian monk seal is an endangered species and its population is declining at a rate of about four percent per year.

Jenny will continue her work as an Assistant Researcher with the UH’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.

IGERT presentations at Mexico conference

admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:27:06 +0000

Our NSF IGERT ECPB was well represented at the International Ecohealth Forum 2008 from December 1 – 5, in Merida, Mexico. Our fellows and faculty had a major impact on the forum not only presenting talks, but also hosting a transdisciplinary round table discussion. See the links below for more information.

IGERT fellows Jenny Schultz presented “Deconstructing the linkages between coral reef and human health in the Pacific Islands,” and John N. Kittinger presented “Towards an integrated approach to health, ecology, and assessment of the Three Gorges Dam.” Brandi Mueller attended presenting her poster “Using weather variation to predict dengue fever in Puerto Rico.” IGERT professor Durrell D. Kapan presented a talk “Man Bites Mosquito: understanding the contribution of human movement to vector borne disease dynamics” that focused on how networks formed by commuters in modern mega-cities may contribute disproportionately to the epidemiological spread and maintenance of vector-borne diseases such as Dengue fever.

IGERT PI Bruce Wilcox and Dr. Kapan hosted a Transdisciplinarity in EcoHEALTH round table of speakers including Alonso Aguirre, DVM, PhD, Senior Vice President Wildlife Trust and David Waltner-Toews, DVM, PhD, Ontario Veterinary College, Guelph. Dr. Kapan presented a short presentation in Transdisciplinarity in EcoHealth co-authored by Dr. Christoph Kueffer and Dr. Wilcox. Dr. Aguirre presented “EcoHealth: Envisioning and Creating a Truly Global Transdiscipline” while Dr. Waltner-Toews presented The ecosystem approach to health. These three presentations stimulated a lively discussion on transdisciplinarity.

A major aspect of transdisciplinarity is commonly characterized by three recurring elements that we can visualize as a triangle: problem orientation, knowledge integration and participation.

The “Transdisciplinary triangle” shows the three key elements of TD research (outer triangle: knowledge integration, participation, and problem orientation), as well as the three forms of knowledge (upper triangle: systems, target, and transformation knowledge) that may be produced by TD research to support problem-solving. Clarifying what forms of knowledge are produced in a TD research project is important for effective problem orientation of research.

For more information see our transdisciplinary materials developed for our 2008 IGERT International Transdisciplinary Symposium on “EcoHealth in Coupled Human-Natural Systems: Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss and Disease Emergence.”

For more information on transdisciplinary research and an expanded bibliography see this website.