Virologist
Emerging and Infectious Diseases
Southern Research Institute
2000 Ninth Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35205
205-581-2681
E-mail: jonsson@sri.org
Colleen B. Jonsson, Ph.D. is a Senior Scientist for the Emerging Infectious Disease Research Program at Southern Research. She has a secondary associate faculty appointment at The University of Alabama at Birmingham in the Department of Biochemistry. Dr. Jonsson is also a graduate faculty member in the new Ph.D. Training in Translational Research and Drug Discovery program at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has had a number of active research projects in Latin America and was awarded an American Society of Microbiology International Professorship to Tegucigulpa, Honduras in 2001. She has served as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization in Honduras, Panama and Mexico, in addition to holding several workshops in hantavirus diagnostic methods in Paraguay and Honduras. Dr. Jonsson has served as a reviewer for NIH and NSF study sections including the NIH Biodefense Vaccine Study Section and BioTerrorism & Emerging Infectious Diseases Study Section, AIDS Structural Biology Panel, NSF Ecology of Infectious Disease Panel and DOD and NSF Graduate Fellowships panel. She has served as a reviewer for several journals including American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Antiviral Research, PNAS, Proteins, Virology, Biochemistry, Journal of Infectious Disease and Nucleic Acids Research.
Dr. Jonsson's research program offers over 15 years of experience in the study of highly pathogenic human viruses at BSL2 and BSL3, and an additional 10 years of experience in bacterial and fungal pathogens of plants at BSL2. Her research program is focused in three areas: (1) the discovery of new therapeutics through the development and assessment of antiviral and vaccine therapeutics and development and characterization of animal models for viruses; (2) the ecology of infectious diseases, and (3) basic aspects of the virus life cycle such as viral assembly and replication, drug resistance. Brief introductions to each of her current research programs are described below.
Antiviral Drug Discovery Research
The abrupt onset of illness characteristic of acute viral infections which cause hemorrhagic fevers and adult respiratory distress syndromes (ARDS) in humans calls for treatments that are rapid and targeted to the site of infection. Current work in the lab involves a multidisciplinary team of investigators from Hantaviruses cause two serious human diseases, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). At this time, there are no approved antiviral drugs for the treatment of either illness. Therapeutic efforts are generally limited to supportive care, although studies performed in China on HFRS patients suggest that the drug ribavirin provides an improved prognosis when given early in the course of disease. Research efforts focus on the synthesis (Dr. Jeffrey Arterburn, New Mexico State University) and screening of antiviral drugs for therapeutic intervention of hantavirus infections (Southern Research).
Current research projects are focused on the antiviral activity of three lead drugs in cell culture (Dr. Hoon Chung), metabolism of the drug in virus-infected and uninfected cell culture (Dr. William Parker, Southern Research), the potential for resistance of the virus to these lead drugs and the mutagenic potential of the drugs. The studies will provide mechanism of action data for the rational design of antivirals for treatment of HPS and HFRS to optimize synthetic strategies. In addition, because hantaviruses replicate in a manner similar to many other negative strand RNA viruses, the findings may be applicable for the design of effective therapeutics for other viral infections such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) and Rift Valley fever (RFV) viruses, which are being pursued with a similar approach at the United States Army Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) with Dr. Connie Schmaljohn. Also, intensive vaccine efforts are in progress at USAMRIID as hantaviruses such as HTNV are considered an important infectious disease to the military. Additional therapeutics would complement these on-going vaccine efforts for Hantaan virus as well as other hemorrhagic fever viruses.
Hantaviruses represent an important and growing source of disease emergence in both established and developing countries. And, as such, they are an excellent model for use in studying outbreaks of acute virus infections. They are carried by rodents and can cause persistent infections without apparent disease symptoms in their natural hosts. It is generally believed that hantaviruses are transmitted from rodents to humans through the inhaling of virus from rodent excreta. As a part of any biome, rodents are greatly affected by the environmental changes, caused by the never ending economy development of the human race. Monitoring and modeling the impact of these changes on the hantaviruses ecology is an important task that can help in preventing the outbreak of hantaviruses. A multidisciplinary team has been assembled that is currently monitoring and modeling the impact of rapid anthropogenic land cover changes on hantavirus ecology in Paraguay. Involved are Drs. Jonsson and Chu from Southern Research, Dr. Linda Allen and Dr. Robert Owen from Texas Tech University, Drs. Son Tran and Enrico Pontelli from New Mexico State University, Drs. Douglas Goodin and Dr. Shawn Hutchinson from Kansas State University and Norma Coluchi from the Ministry of Health in Paraguay.
The Southern Research laboratory has an active program in trafficking (Harish Ramanathan, graduate program BMB at University of Alabama) and assembly (Steve Plane BMB at The University of Alabama) of Old and New World hantaviruses. In addition, we have an active interest in the mechanism of retroviral integration and the role of VP30 and VP35 in Ebola virus replication (Sinu John).
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