Abdu Alkishe: Mapping rodents and disease to save lives

A photo of a man with a black beanie, safety glasses, a white safety mask, and a bright orange high visibility vest. He is holding a measuring device. — Abdu Alkishe captures rodents and maps the distribution of hantavirus and rodents in the United States to identify the geographical risk areas. Photo courtesy of Abdu Alkishe.

The following story was written in December 2023 by Fatemeh Abdoltajedini in ENGL 4824: Science Writing as part of a collaboration between the English department and the Center for Communicating Science.

In 2004, Virginia Tech announced that a student had died after being hospitalized for pneumonia. In fact, laboratory tests revealed that the cause of his death was a virus called hantavirus, predominantly spread by rodents.

Humans may acquire hantaviruses from the urine, saliva, or feces of mice and rats. The illness starts initially as a flu-like sickness with fever, chills, and aches in the muscles, but it quickly evolves into a potentially fatal condition in which the lungs fill with fluid and cause respiratory failure. Today, researchers at the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation are developing novel tools to map the distribution of rodents and pathogens and provide risk areas to public health officials to reduce the possibility of contact with rodents and any further hantavirus deaths.

Abdu Alkishe, a disease ecologist at Virginia Tech, is currently employing machine learning and ecological niche modeling technologies to detect the propagation of rodents and hantavirus in the United States. It all started in 2015, when he enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a master's degree. During those years, Alkishe was researching ticks and tick-borne diseases in rodents, hoping to understand how climate change influences their dispersal.

In his Ph.D. work, Alkishe expanded his research by experimenting with several species of ticks throughout the United States. In that National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, his advisor, Town Peterson, helped him to study ticks in Kansas. Alkishe and his collaborators collected ticks, captured rodents, and studied the phenology and pathogens of tick species.

Throughout his investigations into ticks and tick-borne diseases in rodents, Alkishe became interested in hantavirus, which led to his post-doctoral work with Luis Escobar at Virginia Tech.

"When I realized that rodents play a role in virus transmission, I became interested in it, but I couldn't find any research on the biogeography and ecology of hantavirus,” says Alkishe. “Therefore, I decided to work on hantavirus for my postdoctoral studies." His journey, from investigating ticks and tick-borne diseases during his master's and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Kansas to his current focus on hantavirus, underscores the adaptability required in the face of emerging public health challenges.

A photo of a man on a bridge with a lake in the background. He is wearing a white colored puma shirt, a black shirt and pants, and his right hand is in his pocket with a watch. — Abdu Alkishe works on disease ecology and ecological niche modeling. Photo courtesy of Abdu Alkishe.

The use of machine learning and ecological niche modeling technologies to map the distribution of rodents and hantavirus is a pioneering approach. By leveraging these advanced tools, Alkishe aims not only to identify risk areas but also to unravel the relationships between different rodent species and the virus. This holistic perspective is crucial in developing effective strategies for mitigating the risk of hantavirus transmission to humans, he says.

In his work, Alkishe is trying to determine whether there is a relationship between the presence of rodents and pathogens using data from the National Ecological Observatory Network, a continental scale platform for ecological research funded by the National Science Foundation.

“That gives us a very nice picture of the hotspots or the risk areas of hantavirus in the USA,” Alkishe explains. He is working to find solutions to several issues, including how different species may transmit the virus and how environmental factors affect the virus's ability to spread and survive. According to maps from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), many cases are concentrated in the western U.S. states of Arizona and California, for example. However, there are fewer incidences in the middle and eastern regions of the United States. The regional concentration of hantavirus cases in specific areas, such as the western United States, prompts questions about the role of local rodent populations and environmental variables.

This photo is a screenshot of a website. It shows an array of 8 different ecosystems with the words "Field Sites." — According to its website, "the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) program provides open, continental-scale data across the United States that characterize and quantify complex, rapidly changing ecological processes."

"We're curious to find out why,” Alkishe explains. “Is that a result of the local rodent population's diversity or environmental variables? This is what we are trying to understand.”

Alkishe is intrigued by facing challenges, exploring new research avenues, and understanding the environmental variables in his studies.

“Every day, I learn something new,” he says.

He is currently eager to learn more about remote sensing and to incorporate satellite data into machine-learning methods. Knowing from the descriptive analysis that at least 15 rodent species are infected with the hantavirus, he is investigating several methods to map the hantavirus risk area for each rodent species. He hopes to gain deeper insight into the connection between viruses and rodents and apply his knowledge to save lives.

Alkishe's multidisciplinary and technologically sophisticated approach has great promise for the field of public health in addition to making a substantial contribution to the field of disease ecology. His work not only seeks to unravel the mysteries of hantavirus transmission but also strives to apply this knowledge to save lives and reduce the impact of this potentially fatal disease. Alkishe's research exemplifies the ongoing evolution of scientific methodologies and the continuous pursuit of innovative solutions to pressing global health concerns.