Using a One Health Approach to Understand Threats to Wildlife and Human Health

Dr. Amandine Gamble is a disease ecologist leading wildlife health research and training as a member of the Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health and as an Assistant Professor in the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Public & Ecosystem Health. Dr. Gamble’s work aims to unravel how different species influence pathogen dynamics in specific ecosystems.

Whether trying to identify those populations that fuel the spread of a virus or uncovering those that ensure its persistence, answering these epidemiologic questions is critical for developing more targeted and sustainable strategies to manage infectious disease threats. Dr. Gamble’s research blends theory with field investigations and experiments and includes work on peri-domestic wildlife in the USA as well as on remote seabird colonies in the Southern Ocean, where she has been working over the past eight years. Her most recent work focuses on avian influenza in marine birds and mammals of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions, where her team is striving to better understand pathogen transmission dynamics to mitigate conservation impacts.

Dr. Marie Bouilloud is a disease ecologist and postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Bouilloud focuses on exploring the relationships between the composition and health of ecosystems. During her graduate studies in France, she studied communities of rodents and the microbes they carry across an urbanization gradient to better understand the impact of human activities on ecosystem health. With this multi-host, multi-pathogen approach, Dr. Bouilloud was able to identify the rodent species driving the dynamics of important zoonotic pathogens and the ecosystems in which they thrive, pointing toward ecosystem-based management options.

Dr. Bouilloud is now looking at the role of introduced rodents in wildlife pathogen dynamics on sub-Antarctic islands. She aims to assess whether better control of introduced rodents could help lessen the impacts of important wildlife diseases such as avian cholera or leptospirosis, with the goal of ultimately improving wildlife health in vulnerable ecosystems.

Dr. Steve Osofsky is the Jay Hyman Professor of Wildlife Health & Health Policy at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine as well as Director of the Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health (wildlife.cornell.edu). Dr. Osofsky has worn many hats, including wildlife veterinarian in Africa; zoo veterinarian; Biodiversity Program Advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); overseer of rhino, elephant, and tiger conservation programs at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF); and Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s wildlife health programs around the world. As one of the intellectual catalysts of the One Health and Planetary Health concepts, his focus is on the relationships among wildlife health, domestic animal health, and human health and well-being, all as underpinned by environmental stewardship. Dr. Osofsky (Cornell DVM ’89) sees his move into academia as an exciting and urgent opportunity to help train the next generation of One Health professionals.