Viral Emergence Research Initiative (VERENA)
The Verena Consortium @viralemergence · Twitter1)
The Viral Emergence Research Initiative (VERENA) is a global collaboration to advance viral prediction.
Our team includes ecologists, virologists, data scientists, and policy experts. We’ve focused on recruiting junior scientists with an interdisciplinary skillset, including labwork, bioinformatics, and statistical modeling.
Our team is named after St. Verena, the patron saint of lighthouses and a caretaker of the sick.2)
Dozens of scientific teams are developing models to predict which viruses could infect humans, which animals host them, and where they could emerge. We’re joining these teams together, to try and explore new ground.3)
Predict and Prevent: The Viral Emergence Research Initiative
March 19, 2021 4)
Online via Zoom
Will we ever actually be able to predict and prevent the next pandemic? Forecasting viral emergence requires scientists to connect the basic building blocks of host-virus interactions with global processes like climate change and urbanization. Dr. Colin Carlson will present the work of the Verena Consortium, an interdisciplinary collaboration working to identify which viruses could someday pose a threat to health security, which animals host them, and where they could emerge—and along the way, building the largest open data ecosystem in viral ecology. In doing so, their work helps understand pressing questions like: Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from? Which SARS-like viruses should we start preparing for in the future? And how do we maximize the impact of that predictive work in global health and pandemic preparedness?
The Georgetown University Global Health Initiative (GHI) and Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security (GHSS) are co-sponsoring this event as part of the Global Health Security Seminar Series. Featured
Dr. Colin Carlson is an assistant research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security. He is a global change biologist studying the relationship between global climate change, biodiversity loss, and emerging infectious diseases. His research program focuses on statistical methods for measuring and forecasting the global distribution and burden of neglected diseases (including anthrax, Zika virus, and helminthiases).
People
The Global Health Initiative serves as a university-wide platform for supporting faculty, students, and staff who are contributing to global health through research, teaching, and service.5)
The initiative is jointly led by Edward Healton, executive vice president for health sciences and executive dean of the School of Medicine, and Thomas Banchoff, vice president for global engagement. It is coordinated by a faculty committee drawn from across campuses, led by Drs. Healton and Banchoff in collaboration with John Monahan, senior advisor to President John J. DeGioia.
Faculty
Deus Bazira - School of Medicine - Associate Professor
Jishnu Das - McCourt School of Public Policy; School of Foreign Service - Professor
Mark Dybul - School of Medicine - Professor
Heidi Elmendorf - Department of Biology - Associate Professor
Timothy Frazier - School of Continuing Studies - Professor of the Practice
Jesse Goodman - School of Medicine - Professor
Lawrence O. Gostin - Georgetown Law - University Professor
James Habyarimana - McCourt School of Public Policy - Associate Professor
Rebecca Katz - School of Medicine - Associate Professor
John Kraemer - School of Nursing and Health Studies - Associate Professor
David Levy - School of Medicine - Professor
Bernhard Liese - School of Nursing and Health Studies - Professor
Phyllis Magrab - School of Medicine - Professor
Emily Mendenhall - School of Foreign Service - Associate Professor
John T. Monahan - O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law - Senior Scholar
Deborah Phillips - Department of Psychology; Georgetown College - Professor; Vice Dean of Faculty
Steven Singer - Department of Biology; School of Medicine - Professor6)
Individual Profiles
Dr. Rasmussen is a virologist studying host responses to infection by combining classical virology with modern systems biology approaches. Her research objectives are to identify host response signatures predictive of infection severity or disease outcome and host pathways to target drug development or repurposing. She is particularly interested in viruses that are highly pathogenic, newly emergent or likely to emerge because of climate change, land development, or ecological disruption. Currently she is focused on SARS-CoV-2, as well as other emerging pathogens with the potential to profoundly impact global health, such as Ebola virus, MERS-CoV, influenza virus, and hemorrhagic fever viruses. She works closely with other faculty and affiliates within the GHSS on the Viral Emergence Research Initiative (the VERENA Consortium), where she leads the core virology team.
Dr. Rasmussen has employed uses in vitro systems, animal models, and clinical specimens to study the relationship between host response and pathogenesis. She previously developed a model of Ebola virus disease in a genetically diverse panel of mice, the Collaborative Cross (CC), leveraging the diversity of CC mouse disease phenotypes to study genetic and transcriptomic factors underlying disease severity in humans. She has applied this model to developing predictive signatures of disease outcome and infection and identify novel drug targets. She is currently evaluating CC mouse models towards investigation of sex-specific host responses to viral infection, as well as to investigate disease presentation in other viruses that pose a major threat to global public health, including SARS-CoV-2. Ultimately, these host response profiles can be used for translational or biodefense applications, such as diagnosing infection, predicting disease severity, informing vaccine design, and developing or repurposing host-targeted drugs to impair virus replication or reverse pathology.
Dr. Rasmussen has published numerous original research articles in the peer-reviewed literature and serves on the editorial board of Cell Reports and mSphere. In addition to her scientific work, she believes that engagement of the public is essential to successful public health initiatives and is an active and outspoken science communicator. She has written for Forbes, Foreign Affairs, Slate, the Guardian, and Leapsmag, and appeared many times in media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, ABC, NBC, CNN, CBC, and BBC. She is also an advocate for equitable and inclusive science, and serves on the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director’s Working Group on Changing the Culture to End Sexual Harassment. 7)