Evolving Threats and Emerging Solutions: Fundamentals from the Front Lines of Insect-borne Viruses Research

Roenick Olmo: The Importance of Interdisciplinary Approaches in the Emergence of New Technologies to Prevent Arbovirus Transmission
Benjamin Matthews: Thinking Outside the Box: What Does it Take to Create a Research Model, and Which Lessons Can We Learn?
Selena Sagan: The Evolving Landscape of Mosquito-borne Viruses Worldwide, and How Exploring Pathogen Evolution May Lead to Novel Insights and Solutions

This event is co-sponsored with the Cultural and Scientific Office of the French Embassy in Canada.

Dr. Roenick P. Olmo earned his PhD in bioinformatics from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) in 2015, where he used molecular biology, virology, and bioinformatics tools to study antiviral innate immune reponses in the vector mosquito Aedes aegypti. His work primarily centred on understanding why some mosquitoes are naturally resistant to being infected with medically important viruses that cause dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya fever. Later, Roenick embarked on a postdoctoral experience in Strasbourg, France, at the Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IBMC), were he investigated how insect-specific viruses (ISVs)—a distinct category of viruses that infects exclusively insects—can alter the transmission of medically important viruses during co-infection in mosquitoes. From October, 2023, Roenick has joined the CNRS UPR9022 unit at the IBMC/Strasbourg as associate researcher (chargé de recherche CNRS) and his ongoing projects are geared towards connecting the intricate molecular mechanisms of natural resistance to virus infections in mosquitoes, the link between mosquito anthropophilic behavior and immunity, and the development of strategies to curb transmission of mosquito-borne pathogens.

At UBC, together with the lab of Dr. Benjamin Matthews (Department of Zoology), Roenick aims to study the connection between the mosquito olfactory system and immunity, focusing on genetic changes that led to anthropophilia in the domestic Ae. aegypti aegypti and consequently the capacity to transmit viruses (a.k.a. vector competence). They will integrate the expertise of the Matthews laboratory in mosquito neurophysiology and genetics, together with his expertise in mosquito antiviral immunity, to identify and target relevant genes within the olfactory system that might affect immunity and antiviral responses in mosquitoes. This work will shed light in the connection between olphaction and immunity, and will certainly contribute to the development of new strategies to control arbovirus transmission by Aedes mosquitoes. Roenick is in residence at Green College in the fall semester of 2024.

Aedes aeygpti mosquitoes are deadly vectors of the arboviral pathogens that cause Dengue fever, yellow fever, Zika and Chikungunya. The Benjamin Matthews lab is interested in understanding how the genome of mosquitoes and other insects encode the ability to perform adaptive behaviors, including blood-feeding and selecting suitable egg-laying sites. They utilize a broad range of techniques from genomics, genetics, neurobiology, and behavior to address these questions.

Dr. Selena Sagan is a Professor, Canada Research Chair in RNA Biology & Viral Infections, and Co-director of the Prepare for Pandemics through Advanced Research in Evolution (PrePARE) Research Cluster (https://www.microbiology.ubc.ca/prepare) in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). As an undergrad at McGill University, she became fascinated by viral proteins which disrupt host antiviral responses. Dr. Sagan then obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Ottawa, where she focused on the development of protein- and RNA-based tools to study small-interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and interrogate target site accessibility in large, highly-structured RNAs (such as the genomes of positive-sense RNA viruses). For her postdoctoral training, she became interested in Hepatitis C virus and (mi)RNA biology as well as genome-wide approaches to study protein-RNA interactions and RNA secondary structures. In 2013, Dr. Sagan started her own independent research group at McGill University, studying positive-sense RNA viruses of the Flaviviridae family (including hepatitis C virus, dengue and Zika viruses) as well as respiratory viruses (including respiratory syncytial virus and human coronaviruses). In 2023, Dr. Sagan’s research group moved to the University of British Columbia, where her research program focuses on RNA-RNA and protein-RNA interactions at the host-virus interface.