Happy hour with a scientist

Join SWARM in conversation with two veterinary researchers who study zoonotic diseases. Christie Mayo and Angela Bosco-Lauth will talk about surprising COVID discoveries — such as how the virus has infected wild deer, captive tigers, and other animal species. We hear about COVID spillover all the time, but what does it really mean when a virus infects multiple species?

Mayo is a veterinarian and diagnostic virologist specializing in bluetongue virus, which affects livestock. (Just ask her about biting midges!) She works with novel diagnostics and next-generation sequencing to monitor emerging infectious diseases in various animal species.

Bosco-Lauth is a veterinarian whose laboratory focuses on understanding how pathogens affect their host. Much of her current research focuses on how SARS-CoV-2 infects different species of animals and how readily the virus can be transmitted between hosts.

Christie and Angela both work at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Some background reading: in…