Exploiting museum rodent collections to understand zoonotic disease reservoirs

Our goal is to exploit under-utilized museum collections with molecular tools to understand the natural history of zoonotic pathogens transmitted by rodents. In AIM1 we will use a PCR-based method to identify rodents infected with human-parasitic schistosomes. In AIM2 we will use a sequence-capture array to identify individuals infected with major human pathogens that can describe the expansion and contraction of zoonoses across the landscape and through time. Preliminary data from this proposal will be used to publish a manuscript on schistosome infections in African rodents as well as a proof-of-concept paper describing the development and implementation of the probe panel from AIM2.