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Virus Stalker

September 18, 2014

Some of the most dangerous, but also some of the most helpful, entities in the world are ones that we cannot even see.

Searching out and studying those entities—viruses, bacteria and other microbes—through his Global Viral independent research institute has put epidemiologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe at the forefront of the fight against worldwide disease pandemics. It also earned him a trip to Angelo State in April as the featured speaker for the 38th annual WTMA Distinguished Lectureship in Science Honoring Dr. Roy E. Moon.

“While we think of the big forces in life as the things that we can see, the large things,” Wolfe said, “the reality is that we live in a world that is, believe it or not, made up primarily of small things that we can’t even see. The exploration and study of those things has huge consequences for us in terms of identifying things that can kill us, of course, but also identifying things that can help us and perhaps even teach us a little bit about some of the big questions in life.”

Through a series of informal and formal presentations over two days on the ASU campus, Wolfe detailed his institute’s research efforts in studying the flow of potentially deadly viruses from animals to human populations. During his work at monitoring sites in disease hotspots around the world, he has discovered retroviruses, including a gorilla virus and a type of Ebola, almost died of malaria and consulted on the mobility of diseases for the 2011 Hollywood movie “Contagion.”

“…The reality is that we live in a world that is, believe it or not, made up primarily of small things that we can’t even see.”

Dr. Nathan Wolfe, Epidemiologist

“We now live in a world,” Wolfe said, “where viruses almost anywhere, whether it’s the middle of Central Africa or Asia or even North America, if they enter a person, they have the potential to spread everywhere around the world in the course of 24 hours. That fundamentally changes the way that we interface with microbes. What we’ve done to the planet and our inter-connectivity has created a situation where microbes have the potential of moving in ways they never could before.”

The main negative consequences are increased possibilities for pandemics. But Wolfe did not bring only bad news to ASU audiences. There was also good news about microbial studies.

“In microbes lay not only disease entities, but also things that could really solve major problems of humanity,” Wolfe said. “When we think of vaccines, we think of them as coming out of biotech and pharmaceutical companies.; Well, the vast majority of vaccines are simply viruses. Just like the vaccine that allowed us to eradicate smallpox was simply cowpox.”

That subject also led to some harsh words aimed at the anti-immunization movement.

“For those of us who study these bugs,” Wolfe said, “it’s devastating that intelligent and educated people will deny the utility of vaccines and basically put their children and their communities in danger by not vaccinating the children.”

He also encouraged ASU students in the sciences to follow in his footsteps and study the unseen world around us.

“For the students in this crowd,” Wolfe said, “if you choose to go into microbiology, your capacity to understand the microbial world will be unprecedented.”

“There is a whole host of ways that we get this unseen world wrong,” he added. “I think for those of us who spend our lives studying it, it’s a natural thing and a useful thing to try to communicate about it in a way that can maybe help everyone to understand that world a little bit better, not be harmed by it and, in fact, be helped by it.”