The Penn Stater Magazine

Peter Hudson: On the Front Lines of Infectious Disease Research

September 27, 2010 at 6:02 pm Lori Shontz Leave a comment

Peter Hudson

Peter Hudson, Willaman professor of biology and director of Penn State’s Huck Institute for the Life Sciences, opened his appearance at the Alumni Association’s “Huddle with the Faculty” event Saturday morning by looking out at the audience and saying, “I was told not to frighten you.”

Everyone laughed; we were, after all, aware of the lecture’s title: “Expecting the Unexpected: Threats from Emerging Diseases.” Then some guy in back of me said,  “Bring it on.”

And Hudson did. He was charming and engaging and occasionally funny as he explained three key facets of infectious disease research: Where do the diseases come from? Who is responsible? What are the threats? It’s not exactly his fault that I washed my hands about 17 times between the lecture and the Temple game or that I considered, briefly, covering my mouth and nose with a mask at the stadium.

And that’s a fair tradeoff. One of the reasons I love working at a university is that it provides so many opportunities to hear experts and scholars talk about their fields. (Shameless plug: Huddle with the Faculty, held the morning of every home football game at the Nittany Lion Inn, is another of those opportunities—open to everyone.) Hudson’s research, like much of what goes on at Penn State’s Institute for Infectious Disease Dynamics, is on the cutting edge, and it’s fascinating.

Among the things I learned:

—There are 1,405 known human infectious diseases, of which 58 percent were derived from wildlife. And although the U.S. Surgeon General in 1969, William Stewart, declared it “time to close the book on infectious diseases, declare the war against pestilence won,” today in the U.S. we have only 54 vaccines that are effective against 23 diseases. Clearly, Stewart jumped the gun on that one.

—Researchers are taking a close look at “superspreaders,” people who spread more than their fair share of the diseases. Did you know that with a disease like SARS, 3 percent of infected people cause 60 percent of transmissions?

—And about those people who insist on showing up at the office even though they’re sneezing and coughing and generally spreading germs all over the place? Hudson said one of his students has some preliminary research that might lead to a fascinating explanation: The disease itself might have some way of making those it infects get out and about … to assure that it continues spreading.

Here's an image of the tick that spreads the disease Hudson and his students are studying. It's from the CDC website.

Wow, right? Hudson and his team are researching tick-borne encephalitis, which is especially prevalent in Russia, Asia, and northern Italy. Humans get the disease when they are bitten by ticks who have picked up the disease by previously biting mice, which harbor the disease. Hudson and his students discovered that sexually mature male mice with high body mass are the most effective transmitters; as he put it, “fat, old, middle-aged guys get the blame again.”

And the most effective male mice are the ones who are the most connected—the social butterflies, if you will. Researchers decided to see what happened when they removed the parasite from the mice; you’d think that those mice would be more active and connected, right, if they’re not hosting a parasite?

But the researchers found exactly the opposite—without the parasite, the mice were less socially active. “Are parasites manipulating?” Hudson asked. “Is the disease making them change their behavior?”

Obviously, there’s a lot of work yet to be done. But it was fascinating to hear about the research in progress, even if I need to lay in a bigger supply of Purell.

Lori Shontz, senior editor

Entry filed under: Alumni Association, Campus events, Eberly College of Science, Faculty research, Penn State faculty, University Park campus. Tags: Huck Institute for the Life Sciences, Huddle with the Faculty, Institute for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Peter Hudson, SARS, superspreaders, tick-borne encephalitis.