With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scientists at Scripps Research and UC San Diego are sequencing the virus to help guide local outbreak response. (more…)
Kristian AndersenNovember 12, 2020
Our study investigating smoldering 'hidden' outbreaks of Zika in the Americas was published on the cover of Cell. In this paper we used travel surveillance and genomic epidemiology to answer a simple question - "in 2017, was the epidemic over?". The short answer, is no - read the rest of the study for the long answer. The Zika epidemic in…
Kristian AndersenAugust 23, 2019
Summary: Using local and travel-associated case reporting from American and European public health systems, we identified an unreported Zika outbreak in Cuba during 2017. Virus sequencing from travelers revealed that the Zika outbreak in Cuba was sparked by multiple introductions of the virus from elsewhere in the Caribbean and Central America during 2016 that persisted into 2017. The recent Zika virus…
Kristian AndersenJuly 3, 2018
Over the past 15 years, outbreaks caused by viruses such as Ebola, SARS, and Zika have cost governments billions of US dollars. Combined with a perception among scientists, health workers and citizens that responses to outbreaks have been inadequate, this has fueled what seems like a compelling idea. Namely, that if researchers can identify the next pandemic virus before the…
Kristian AndersenJune 11, 2018
In a series of papers in the journals Nature and Nature Protocols, we used Zika virus sequencing from patients and mosquitos to show how the virus has spread across South America and into Florida. This work was performed as a large (huge!) collaboration of national and international institutions, which was made possible because of open science and open data. (more…)
Kristian AndersenMay 25, 2017
In a recent study published in Cell together with colleagues from UMass Worcester and the Broad, we show how a single mutation that occurred during the 2013-2016 Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa increased the ability of the virus to infect human cells. The mutation occurred in the Ebola virus glycoprotein and is located in the receptor binding domain of…
Kristian AndersenNovember 22, 2016
The 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was of unprecedented size and devastation, but also stands a landmark for infectious disease genomics. By sequencing virus genomes directly from patient samples, scientists are now able to investigate how viruses evolve, transmit between individuals, and spread across country borders during outbreaks, directly informing infection control. (more…)
Kristian AndersenOctober 12, 2016
