VandeWoude Lab Research Aims

Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Therapeutics of (primarily Feline) Disease

  • Host and pathogen mechanisms contributing to pathogenicity, focused on feline disease
  • Features of viral adaptation and evolution relative to cross-species transmission and adaptation
  • Host intracellular restriction mechanisms and innate immunity during retroviral infection
  • Intra-host disease dynamics relating to viral cell targets and tissue level impacts that predict/effect disease outcome
  • Relating peripheral blood cell characteristics to immunological responses and disease outcomes
  • Novel approaches for lentiviral vaccine development and therapeutic intervention
  • Novel approaches for dermatophytosis diagnosis and therapeutic intervention
  • Genetic evaluation of Microsporum canis strains
  • Development of innovative approaches and new diagnostic assays for study of host and viral kinetics and pathogenesis

Ecology of Infectious Disease

  • Understanding how urbanization, habitat fragmentation and sympatry with domestic cats influence disease dynamics in bobcats and pumas
  • Exploring modes of pathogen spillover that result in wildlife exposure to human and domestic animal diseases, and domestic animal and human exposure to wildlife diseases
  • Utilization of landscape genetic approaches to evaluate geographic determinants of interactions between subpopulations and cross-species disease transmission events
  • Collaborations with federal, state, and academic partners to develop a disease database for free-ranging North American felids (bobcats, pumas, feral domestic cats)

Laboratory Animal Medicine/Husbandry

  • Behavioral and physiological impacts of environmental enrichment on laboratory rodents
  • Laboratory Animal Disease investigations