Kei Amemiya
US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USA
Title: Small and large animal models for melioidosis and glanders
Biography
Biography: Kei Amemiya
Abstract
| There are many new and emerging diseases that are yet to be understood in regards to host-pathogen interactions, which makes effective treatment against these diseases still far in the future. Two emerging diseases that fall into this category are caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei and B. mallei, which are responsible for the diseases melioidosis and glanders, respectively. Although these two organisms are closely related, they exhibit differences in inducing the host innate immune response and interaction with specific hosts. For the past few years, we have been assessing different small and large animals to establish a model for melioidosis and glanders that would be suitable for evaluating candidate vaccines and therapeutic countermeasures against these two diseases. We have been examining the more sensitive BALB/c mouse and more resistant C57BL/6 mouse to their susceptibility to be infected by different strains of the pathogens. In addition, we have also been evaluating several species of nonhuman primates that could potentially serve as large animal models for melioidosis and glanders. We will discuss the possible benefits of selecting the small and large animal models for these two emerging diseases for evaluating future candidate vaccines and therapeutic countermeasures. |