Author: Sydney Darling Majors: Biology and Spanish
During the past spring and fall semesters of 2020, I have had the great privilege of studying disease ecology under my honors research advisor, Dr. Kristian Forbes. While exploring my interests throughout my undergraduate career, I found that I was interested in both the hard science sides of biology, like biochemistry and formulas, along with the applications of this hard science into the real world. Then, in my fall semester of junior year, I was ecstatic to take a brand new upper-level biology course of my own: Disease Ecology under Dr. Forbes. Dr. Forbes is incredibly inspiring; he truly is an example of taking the diverse field of biology to new heights by exploring the emerging field of infectious diseases. He has so much knowledge and experience with a wide variety of zoonotic diseases, such as Ebola, coronavirus, influenza, and hantavirus, all of which we learned so much about in the disease ecology course last fall.
With the guidance of Dr. Forbes and in conjunction with Arkansas Fish and Wildlife, I have been performing research on coronavirus and influenza virus in Arkansas duck populations. I was able to travel to the duck hunting capital of the world in the prime of duck hunting season and gather samples on three separate weekends in December 2019 and January 2020. During these field visits to Stuttgart, Arkansas, and surrounding areas of the Delta, a team of myself and a few other graduate students in my lab worked together with local hunting clubs and private hunters to take fecal and saliva samples of legally hunted ducks across a variety of species. These samples were then taken back to the lab in Fayetteville and frozen in order to prepare for RNA extraction and qPCR analysis.
Due to adjustments I had to make related to undergraduate research being paused for Spring and Summer 2020, I, unfortunately, have actually only had time to analyze the feces samples I collected for coronavirus. This is a little disappointing, as I was intending to look at rates of coinfection between the two RNA viruses amongst the gathered samples. However, the qPCR analysis showed that the over 80 fecal samples I was able to analyze were negative for coronavirus. While this result may not seem as exciting as a few positive tests, I am still excited to explore what these negatives can mean in the context of our environment.
While my research definitely looked a lot different than I was planning due to the current situation in our world, COVID-19 has only further exemplified the pressing need for research on zoonotic diseases. At the point of writing this blog post, thousands are tragically dying every single day from coronavirus in our nation alone. There is still so much to be learned about these disease reservoirs, especially here in Arkansas where little is known about waterfowl in particular.
It is with the support of the Honors College Research Grant and the Arkansas Audubon Society Research Grant that I have been able to participate in undergraduate research like this. The knowledge and experiences that I have and will continue to learn from taking responsibility for a project with the support of graduate students and mentors will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I hope to continue my research efforts in new ways during my time studying medicine at UAMS.