{"id":5915,"date":"2024-02-20T16:11:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T22:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5915"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:21:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:21:36","slug":"the-uncharted-world-of-emerging-pathogens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/02\/20\/the-uncharted-world-of-emerging-pathogens\/","title":{"rendered":"The uncharted world of emerging pathogens"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p>In their quest to detect early outbreaks, virus hunters are sampling environmental DNA in water, dirt, and air. It all started when Christopher Mason\u2019s 3-year-old daughter licked a subway pole.Like any parent, he was horrified, but also keenly curious: What types of microbes might be clinging to a metal pipe gripped  by countless commuters every day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mason,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/physiology.med.cornell.edu\/people\/christopher-mason-ph-d\/\">a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medicine,<\/a>\u00a0soon became obsessed with that question. His toddler\u2019s gross interlude inspired him to embark on a journey to unveil the world of bacteria, fungi, and viruses co-mingling with more than 8 million people in New York City\u2019s urban jungle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2013, he launched a project that began dispatching a small army of students shouldering backpacks crammed with latex gloves, vials, and sterile Q-tips. They sampled turnstiles, benches, and kiosks at every open metro stop in the city. It was an expedition into a largely unexplored terrain, like Mars or a deep-sea canyon, brimming with lifeforms both familiar and unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gavi.org\/vaccineswork\/uncharted-world-emerging-pathogens\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"xToaRkp qimt  v  Y WnZ \">xToaRkp qimt  v  Y WnZ <\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In their quest to detect early outbreaks, virus hunters are sampling environmental DNA in water, dirt, and air. It all started when Christopher Mason\u2019s 3-year-old daughter licked a subway pole.Like any parent, he was horrified, but also keenly curious: What types of microbes might be clinging to a metal pipe gripped by countless commuters every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11752,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5915\/revisions\/11752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}