The majority of emerging diseases in humans come from wildlife; however, wildlife biorepositories – which include DNA and tissue biobanks and other biological materials – are not adequately involved in global responses to emerging infectious diseases.
This gap limits our ability to identify disease origins and wild reservoirs, as well as environmental associations that may contribute to disease in humans. Our program is helping solve this issue. We bring together biological collections and biomedical experts from across the Americas in an effort to build cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Our meeting topics are contributed by members and range from benefits sharing, pathogen surveillance, wildlife permitting, capacity building, and biodiversity informatics.
We meet every other Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time Zone (2 p.m. Mountain Time) starting in January 24.
For more information, email the team.
Jocelyn Colella, PhD
Assistant Professor and Curator of Mammals
University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute (USA)
Joseph Cook, PhD
Professor and Curator of Mammals
Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico (USA)
Cody Thompson, PhD
Mammal Collections Manager and Assistant Research Scientist
Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan (USA)
Marcelo Weksler, PhD
Professor Titular y Curador de Mamíferos
Museu Nacionale, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Heather Skeen, PhD
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL (USA)
Alejandra Camacho
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito (Ecuador)
Hernani Fernandes Magalhaes Oliveira, PhD
Environmental Health Consultant, World Health Organization, Distrito Federal (Brazil)
Student Representatives
