July 28, 2016
K-Staters present at international scientific meeting
Eight scientists in the Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases in the diagnostic medicine and pathobiology department in the College of Veterinary Medicine gave four oral and three poster presentations at the 28th meeting of the American Society for Rickettsiology, June 11-14, in Big Sky, Montana.
The attending scientists include four faculty members, Roman Ganta, Jodi McGill, Katie Rief and Ram Raghavan; three postdoctoral scientists, Huitao Liu, Laxmi Jakkula and Ying Wang; and graduate student, Lanjing Wei.
McGill, Rief, Wang and Wei also received American Society for Rickettsiology travel awards. The meeting's organizers have been hosted at K-State in since 2006, when Ganta served as the secretary/treasurer of the society.
Oral presentations included:
• "Metabolic and biosynthetic activity of Ehrlichia chaffeensis in a host cell-free medium." Vijay Eedunuri, Anders Omsland, and Roman R. Ganta.
• "Targeted mutagenesis in Ehrlichia chaffeensis by homologous recombination." Ying Wang, Chuanmin Cheng, and Roman R. Ganta.
• "Monovalent cation/sodium:proton antiporter proteins of Ehrlichia chaffeensis." Lanjing Wei, Huitao Liu, and Roman R. Ganta.
• "A candidate vaccine induces cellular and humoral immunity and protects from tick-transmitted Ehrlichia chaffeensis infection in a canine host." Jodi McGill, Arathy D. S. Nair, Chuanmin Cheng, Rachel A. Rusk, Deborah C. Jaworski, and Roman R. Ganta.
Poster presentations included:
• "EcxR is a global gene regular in Ehrlichia chaffeensis." Laxmi U. M. Jakkula, Huitao Liu, Ying Wang, and Roman Ganta.
• "Consistencies in spatio-temporal trends, and climatic and other geospatial risk factors for rickettsial diseases in the central midwestern United States." Ram K. Raghavan, Gary A. Anderson, Doug. G. Goodin, and Roman R. Ganta.
• "Examination of Tick Vectorial Capacity Factors during Tick-borne Bacterial Infection." Kathryn E. Reif, Jessica K. Ujzco, Deb C. Alprin, and Susan M. Noh.
• "Protein Aggregation in Ehrlichia chaffeensis during Macrophage Infection." Dorota Kuczynska-Wisnik, Michal Zolkiewski, and Roman R. Ganta.