Research Feature

UF Emerging Pathogens Institute forms a multi-disciplinary research team to resolve unanswered questions about leprosy transmission and risk.

Medical experts provide insight to unusual, new cases of leprosy in Florida amid an uptick in the rate of infection. Leprosy is also known as Hansen's disease.

The Aquatic Pathobiology Laboratory, operated by the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, offers investigators lab space to research infectious diseases affecting fresh- and saltwater organisms.

UF researchers at the Emerging Pathogens Institute work to diagnose Chagas disease in Florida, a potentially lethal and poorly understood illness that spreads via kissing bugs.

Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, were present in the blood of 96.4% of Americans over the age of 16 by September 2022.

For this core group of PHHP researchers, who are also members of UF’s Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology, Water Institute and Emerging Pathogens Institute, there is an urgent need to identify emerging contaminants in Florida’s waters, assess their impact and use that data to inform local, state and federal agencies.

The Emerging Pathogens Institute’s annual Research Day event celebrates pathogens research and the people who work in this critical academic space. After three years of meeting virtually, the event was held in person at the Reitz Union on Feb. 16, 2023 on the University of Florida’s campus. Researchers and students exhibited 123 abstracts and posters that probed pathogens and infectious diseases topics spanning from lab research to field investigations and bioinformatic analyses.

University of Florida researchers are refining wastewater surveillance techniques—a public health tool dating to the 1940s—to monitor cities, neighborhoods, and individual buildings for traces of COVID-19, fentanyl, and pesticides.

UF students and researchers address the links between intestinal pathogens, livestock, and children’s gut health.

From land to sea, EPI’s Research Day keynote talks featured recent leaps in pathogen research affecting people and the aquatic animal source foods we consume.