Pandora Report: 10.11.2019

GMU Biodefense Graduate Program Open House
Have you considered expanding your education and experiences through a graduate degree in biodefense? Learn more about our MS (online and in-person) and PhD programs in our upcoming Open Houses! The Master’s Open House will be held on Thursday, October 17th at 6:30pm at our Arlington campus, and the PhD Open House will be on Thursday, November 7th, at 7pm at the Fairfax campus. We invite you to learn more about our programs by attending an open house. You will have the opportunity to discuss our graduate programs with program directors, faculty, admissions staff, current students, and alumni. The current schedule is reflected below, but be sure to sign up for emails from the Schar School’s Graduate Admissions Office to be notified of future admissions events!

What Can We Glean from a Bean: Ricin’s Appeal to Domestic Terrorists
GMU biodefense doctoral student Stevie Kiesel breaks down the use of ricin and its application as an agent of domestic terror. “Just as policymakers have been slow to acknowledge and act upon the threat of domestic CBRN terrorism, timely extant research on the issue is scarce as well. In this article, I focus on ricin as an agent of domestic terror. As government agencies acknowledge the threat domestic terrorism poses, policymakers and law enforcement should take ricin seriously as a potential weapon. To understand the plausibility of ricin’s use as a weapon, I reviewed a number of journal articles, news articles, and court records from 1978 through 2019 and compiled data on 46 incidents of ricin acquisition and/or use. Of these 46 incidents, 19 could be credibly tied to terrorism, 19 were not related to terrorism, and 8 were unclear. The most common motivation after terrorism was murder (10 instances). Of the 19 terrorist incidents, 58% were committed by extreme right-wing terrorists, a term that here encompasses the following ideologies: neo-Nazi/neo-fascist, white nationalist/supremacist/separatist, religious nationalist, anti-abortion, anti-taxation, anti-government, and sovereign citizen.”

GMU One Health Day Panel Discussion                                          Save the date for this November 5th event sponsored by the GMU Next Gen Global Health Security Network and the GMU Biodefense Discussion Group. “One Health Day is November 3 – Connecting Human, Animal, and Environmental Health. One Health is the idea that the health of people is connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. Learn why One Health is important and how, by working together, we can achieve the best health for everyone. [CDC} Did you know that animals and humans often can be affected by many of the same diseases and environmental issues? Some diseases, called zoonotic diseases, can be spread between animals and people. More than half of all infections people can get can be spread by animals – a few examples include rabies, Salmonella, and West Nile virus.” On November 5th, you can listen to the panel from 5-7:10pm in Van Metre Hall at the GMU Arlington Campus. Panel members include Michael E. von Fricken,  PhD, MPH   GMU Global Health and Community Health Security, Dr Jason Hanson,   DVM, PhD, DACVPM,  Associate Editor at Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, Willy A. Valdivia-Granda, CEO, ORION INTEGRATED BIOSCIENCES, INC., and Dr Taylor Winkleman,  DVM, CEO, Winkleman Consulting, LLC. “This panel will discuss emerging ONE HEALTH approaches through the various lens of their real world experiences in the world of Global and Community Health, national security arenas, and the international biodefense security domain. Discussions and interactions with the audience will address insightful views of innovation and emerging technology developments for biodefense leveraging data mining, genomics of infectious diseases, implementation of algorithms for the development of medical countermeasures against known and unknown biothreats, one health biosurveillance challenges in detecting infectious diseases, and strategies for integrating the efforts of health security professionals and biotech experts working together to improve the health of people, animals — including pets, livestock, and wildlife —as well as the environment. Common types of professionals involved in One Health work include disease detectives, human healthcare providers, veterinarians, physicians, nurses, scientists, ecologists, as well as policy makers.”

Ebola Outbreak Updates
After two weeks of halted response efforts due to security concerns, things are resuming in the DRC. “The WHO said though the decline in cases is encouraging and gains have been made in the response, several challenges remain and that the current trends should be interpreted with caution.” On Wednesday, case counts reached 3,207 with 2,144 deaths and 441 suspected cases being investigated. There was concern over a Swedish patient admitted for Ebola testing, but results have come back negative.

Biosafety Levels in Laboratories – Whats the Difference?
We throw around the term “BSL-4” around a lot, but how well do you actually know the different biosafety levels? “The United States is home to several types of laboratories that conduct medical research on a variety of infectious biological agents to promote the development of new diagnostic tests, medical countermeasures, and treatments. To promote safe medical research practices in laboratories studying infectious agents, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health have established four BSLs. The levels consist of requirements that have identified as protective measures needed in the laboratory setting to ensure the proper management of infectious agents to avoid accidental exposure or release into the environment. The BSL designations, ranked from lowest to the highest level of containment, are BSL-1, BSL-2, BSL-3, and BSL-4. The BSL designations outline specific safety and facility requirements to achieve the appropriate biosafety and biocontainment. The BSL is assigned based on the type of infectious agent on which the research is being conducted. The CDC has designed an infographicto help visualize the differences between each level. Each level builds on the previous level, adding additional requirements.”

African Swine Fever: An Unexpected Threat to Global Supply of Heparin
In a conversation I never thought I’d have in healthcare…the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) is hitting heparin supplies at a global level – what a prime example of One Health! “Since August 2018, China has culled more than one million pigs in efforts to contain the spread of ASF within the country. Widespread culling of pigs consequently affects the supply of raw materials needed to produce heparin, which is derived from mucosal tissues in pig intestines. Heparin is a critical anticoagulant drug used to treat and prevent the formation of blood clots in blood vessels in healthcare. As pig herds continue to become infected and culled, should the United States form contingency plans in the event of a heparin shortage?”

Getting Ahead of Candida auris 
“As IDWeek 2019 continued into the weekend, there was no shortage of information for those seeking to prevent and control infectious diseases. For many of us, the threat of antimicrobial resistance has been a major challenge and one for which guidance is desperately needed. Challenging organisms, like Candida auris, make infection prevention efforts in health care that much more difficult and patient care intrinsically more dangerous. In a presentation at the meeting, the presenting author and medical epidemiologist, Snigdha Vallabhaneni, represented the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while co-authors included experts from health care and public health from California, Connecticut, and CDC.  Researchers emphasized that over 1600 patients have been identified in the United States to have C auris infections or colonization. Of those confirmed cases, risk factors were identified, which include high-acuity post-acute care admissions – like long-term acute care hospitalizations, colonization with carbapenemase-producing organisms (CPOs), or hospitalization abroad.”
 
2019 White House Summit on America’s Bioeconomy
“On October 7, 2019, The White House hosted the Summit on America’s Bioeconomy. The Summit marked the first gathering at The White House of our Nation’s foremost bioeconomy experts, Federal officials, and industry leaders to discuss U.S. bioeconomy leadership, challenges, and opportunities. The bioeconomy represents the infrastructure, innovation, products, technology, and data derived from biologically-related processes and science that drive economic growth, improve public health, agricultural, and security benefits. Bioeconomy outputs are incredibly diverse, and future applications limitless in terms of both application and value, including new ways to treat cancer; enable novel manufacturing methodologies for medicines, plastics, materials, and consumer products; create pest and disease resistant crops; and support DNA-based information systems that can store exponentially more data than ever before. Advances realized over the past two decades have resulted from the unique U.S. innovation ecosystem and the convergence between biology and other disciplines and sectors, such as nanotechnology and computer science. The U.S. bioeconomy – spanning health care, information systems, agriculture, manufacturing, national defense, and beyond – is growing rapidly with increasing impact on our Nation’s vitality and our citizens’ lives. Biotechnology represents 2% of the U.S. GDP, or $388 billion. To remain a world leader in the bioeconomy, the U.S. must foster an ecosystem that puts innovative research first in addition to promoting a strong infrastructure, workforce, and data access framework.”

Social Media and Vaccine Hesitancy                                                    As of this year, vaccine hesitancy is listed one of the WHO’s 10 big threats to global health. Vaccine hesitancy is the foot-dragging or refusal to vaccinate yourself or your children, when vaccines are available. Social media are platforms for the dissemination of both accurate and inaccurate information regarding vaccine safety and benefits. Unfortunately, vaccine content shared on social media is overwhelmingly anti-vaccine material and often lacking scientific or medical evidence. According to Ana Santos Rutschman at Saint Louis University, malicious bots are being used to more efficiently disseminate vaccine misinformation on these platforms. Fortunately, major platforms are instituting policies to curb the spread of vaccine misinformation and support the spread of accurate information from credible sources. Though misinformation remains abundant online, these new policies are promising steps toward eliminating erroneous data. Santos Rutschman “believe[s] social media can and should be redesigned to facilitate the promotion of accurate vaccine information.”

Stories You Might Have Missed:

• UK Report Cites Lack of AMR Progress-“A paper issued yesterday by policy institute Chatham House concludes that not enough progress has been made on recommendations from a series of reports that alerted the world to the rising threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The AMR Review, commissioned in 2014 by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and chaired by British economist Lord Jim O’Neill, outlined the threat of AMR to global public health and highlighted the potential costs of inaction in eight separate reports issued over 2 years. Among the highlights from the first AMR Review paper were two startling figures—that drug-resistant infections could cause the deaths of 10 million people by 2050 and could cost the global economy up to $100 trillion if the problem was not addressed in the coming years.”