The Streicker group in the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine (IBAHCM) and MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) seeks a postdoctoral assistant or associate to join a new Wellcome Trust funded project entitled “Mitigating bat viruses: from forecasting spillover to control at the source.”

Bats are an important source of emerging viral threats, responsible for Ebola, SARS and Nipah. We currently mitigate the impacts of bat viruses reactively, by treating humans or domestic animals after viruses emerge and cause disease. This project aims to develop proactive approaches to managing emerging viruses that enable a shift towards prevention. Using vampire bat-transmitted rabies as a tractable system with substantial health and economic importance, we will combine experiments using captive and wild vampire bats, viral genome sequencing, and quantitative modelling to identify new strategies for managing rabies in Latin America. This research delivers immediate translational benefits by mitigating health and economic costs from an important bat virus, strengthens international research capacity, and creates a biological and methodological toolbox to manage pathogens in bats, an historically intractable reservoir of zoonotic viruses.

The postholder will lead the components of this research project concerned with rabies transmission and infection in captive and wild vampire bats in Peru. The specific aims of this post are to: (i) work with local collaborators to establish a new captive vampire bat colony in Lima, Peru, (ii) design and carry out experiments to resolve outstanding uncertainties in the interactions between rabies virus and vampire bats, and (iii) plan and oversee field studies (e.g. longitudinal mark-recapture and mock-vaccine experiments) in cohorts of wild bats in Peru. The post holder will be supported by a full-time project coordinator in Peru as well as part-time field, laboratory and animal care technicians.

The post holder will work primarily with Dr. Daniel Streicker (PI) and colleagues from IBAHCM and the CVR, but will collaborate more broadly with researchers from institutions in Peru (National University of San Marcos, Cayetano Heredia University, Center for Technological, Biomedical and Environmental Research [CITBM]) and the United States (USGS National Wildlife Health Center, University of Wisconsin).

This post is funded for 4 years and will require frequent travel to Peru and occasional travel to the United States.

Conversational Spanish is required. Latin American Early Career Scientists are especially encouraged to apply!