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Tech researchers will get $3.3 million to study how the equine virus can change the brain
Virginia Tech researchers have received a total of $3.3 million in grants to study models of how the Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus (EEEV) alters the brain.
The researchers were led by Kaylin Kane-Hall, a professor of virology at Virginia Tech’s Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.
EEEV affects a small number of people each year – 13 people were diagnosed in the United States in 2020 – but it is a serious disease. There are no specific antiviral treatments, and the virus has a fatality rate of between 30 and 80 percent. EEEV can cause neurological disease, which permanently damages the brain of survivors.
For the past 10 years, Kehn-Hall has studied the Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, a milder cousin of EEEV. She is collaborating with researchers from Virginia Tech, George Mason University and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense to study the lasting effects of EEV.
As part of one grant, Ken-Hall and her colleagues will develop a mouse model of EEEV’s lasting neurological effects in an attempt to understand the underlying biology and what’s happening at the molecular level. They work to identify the neural pathways that can be used to reverse the damage.
While other studies examine models of how the virus kills, Ken-Hall, along with George Mason University’s Barney Bishop and the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Michelle Tews, associate professor of molecular and cellular neurobiology, look at survivors.
As part of the second grant, Ken-Hall will work with Thews and Hehuang “David” Xie, professor of epigenomics and computational biology. Co-investigators include Xiaowei Wu, an assistant professor in the Department of Scientific Statistics at Virginia Tech College, and John McDonough and Eric Johnson of the US Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Defense.
The team will compare data on traumatic brain injury, organophosphate nerve agents and encephalitic alpha viruses, which include Venezuelan, Eastern and Western equine encephalitis viruses.
There is no approved human vaccine for EEEV, but there is an equine vaccine that is administered annually. Although EEEV is deadly and has devastating and long-lasting effects, the low number of annual cases means that there is little incentive for people to get vaccinated. For this reason, therapeutics are a better option than vaccines.
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A professor of technology named a fellow of the National Academy of Innovation
Rafael Davalos, of L. Preston Wade Professor of Mechanics in the College of Biomedical Engineering and Engineering, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NIA).
Davalos is joined by a group of NIA colleagues at the university, including Virginia Tech President Tim Sands and XJ Meng, the university’s Distinguished Professor of Molecular Virology.
Davalos, director of the Center for Engineered Health, has made contributions to cancer detection and treatment using advanced electroporation, biotransport and dielectrophoresis.
In the year The article “Tissue Ablation with Irreversible Electroporation,” published in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering in 2005, has been cited more than 1,300 times, making it the second most cited paper in the journal’s 50-year history.
He currently holds 43 patents and has started four companies.
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Virginia Tech researchers have received national recognition for the development of drone exercises
Several faculty members in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences are among a national team awarded a 2022 Excellence in Multistate Research Award for helping to accelerate the use of drones in agricultural systems.
The project, “Research and Extension for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in US Agriculture and Natural Resources,” will evaluate and identify the most reliable, cost-effective, and user-friendly drone platforms and sensors to monitor and control disturbances in agriculture and natural resources. To maximize the accuracy of the data collected, project members developed hardware, software, and detailed protocols for measuring and using drones.
Maria Ballota, professor in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center; Daniel Fuka, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering; Cooley Hession, professor and graduate program director in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering; and Joseph Oaks, superintendent of the Eastern Virginia Agricultural Research and Extension Center, represented the university on the team of scientists.
They have been part of this recently renewed project since 2016.
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