Technologies

One of the problems with studying bat immunology is that no serologic assay exists to probe bat responses to various pathogens such as rabies, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Geomyces destructans, the etiologic agent of white nose syndrome, a condition associated with an unprecedented bat mortality event in the United States. Filling that gap was ideal for our organization since our rabies lab receives bats for testing throughout the year. So far, experimentation with our unique mAb (BT1-4F10) showed that it could distinguish between rabies infected versus non-infected bats in an assay commonly used to detect rabies but never before in bats.

Emerging pathogens, many of them viruses, continue to surprise us by an underappreciated source, bats. Although bats are among the most abundant, diverse and geographically dispered orders of terrestrial mammals, typically little has been studied about the bat as a host carrying microorganisms and transmitting pathogens to other species. In fact, bats are increasingly proving to be rich reservoirs of emerging viruses and re-emerging viruses as we disrupt by encroaching natural areas exposing not only ourselves, but our domesticated animals to viruses that earlier lacked opportunities to jump species.