SERC TALKS: “Oceans and Human Health: What We Have Learned About COVID From Cholera”

This is the final SERC Talk of the year and the Fall 2022 series. This series was curated and will be moderated by Dr. William Rouse, SERC Research Council Member, Senior Fellow in the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Rita Colwell’s book A Lab of One’s Own: One Woman’s Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science. The book is a memoir-manifesto about the entrenched sexism in science, the elaborate detours women have taken to bypass the problem, and how to fix the system.

Abstract

The role of microorganisms as a driver of fundamental processes of climate, emerging infectious diseases, and human health is surprisingly extensive and extraordinarily complex. It is now clear that the human microbiome plays a significant role in health and well-being. But the global function of microbes is only beginning to be understood. A model for such study is cholera, a disease the causative agent of which is a bacterium whose home is the aquatic environment. Research now shows that this bacterium is native to the environment but also a deadly pathogen, particularly in lesser-developed countries. Next generation sequencing and bioinformatics of cholera patient microbiomes suggest cholera is best described as a polymicrobial infection, with Vibrio cholerae a key player. Extension of the findings from cholera to study of the microbiome offers new insight into infectious diseases, including COVID-19. The studies on COVID-19 now provide a predictive capacity for the current pandemic.

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