Pathogen Identification and Disease Diagnostic

CeZAP Thematic Group

Boris Vinatzer in The Laboratory of Plant & Atmospheric Microbiology & (Meta)Genomics using a desk lamp to get a closer look at plant samples.

Pathogen detection and disease surveillance are key components of early outbreak detection for pandemic prevention of human, animal, and plant diseases. Effective high throughput detection of high-risk pathogens requires innovative sensor technology and deep knowledge of the pathogens that we want to detect. To obtain that knowledge, emerging pathogens need to be identified first. This requires extensive genome reference databases and efficient algorithms. Only upon identification, can pathogen-specific detection assays be developed and outbreaks can be attempted to be contained using vaccines and drugs in the case of human and animal pathogens or using disease-resistant crops in the case of plant pathogens.

Scientists in the CeZAP Pathogen Identification and Disease Diagnostic thematic are at Virginia Tech are developing and applying innovative technology and software in pathogen identification, detection, and disease surveillance and diagnostics to help detect new disease outbreaks before they turn into the next pandemic.

Highlight Research relating to the specific thematic area:

Lenwood Heath and Boris Vinatzer develop and implement software, databases, and web servers for genome-based pathogen identification.
Boris Vinatzer, Song Li, Kevin Lahmers, and Lina Rodriquez Salamanca use metagenomic sequencing for precise animal and plant pathogen identification.
Song Li uses machine learning to analyze sequence data and symptoms of infected plants for early disease detection.
Lina Rodriquez Salamanca leads the VT plant disease clinic and diagnoses diseases in plants from the field, nurseries, forests, and home gardens.
Kevin Lahmers leads the interdisciplinary diagnostic laboratory ViTALS of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, accredited by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.
Büyüktahtakιn Toy solves real-world problems, including in the healthcare sector, that need to be solved quickly and at a superb quality through multi-stage stochastic combinatorial optimization.