Molly McDonough
Chicago State University, IL·Ecology & Evolution·Early-career
Why can some viruses infect many kinds of animals while close relatives infect only one? The answer matters for predicting which viruses might jump from wildlife to people.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Microbiology & Immunology
Genetics
- Topics
orthopoxvirus
smallpox
monkeypox
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Recover orthopoxvirus genomes from historical and modern natural history museum specimens tied to smallpox, monkeypox, and Alaskapox outbreaks, using high-throughput sequencing and targeted enrichment of viral DNA.
- Test how genome architecture influences host range, meaning why some pox viruses infect many animal species while others infect only one, by comparing viral genomes from museum samples.
- Determine whether intermediate or distantly related hosts play a role in orthopoxvirus diversification or transmission, and whether new mammal-derived viral diversity resolves the origin of human smallpox on the virus family tree.
More about the research
The question is especially pressing for orthopoxviruses, the virus group that includes smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in human history, and monkeypox, which can infect multiple species and recently caused an outbreak. How these viruses evolved and which animals carry them remains poorly understood.
Why it matters
Knowing which animals can carry pox viruses, and why some of these viruses infect many species, could help assess the risk of new spillovers from wildlife to people, as seen with monkeypox and Alaskapox. Recovering viral genomes from museum specimens may also clarify the origin of smallpox and the evolutionary history of orthopoxviruses.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph Cook
University of New Mexico, NM·Ecology & Evolution
Survey viral diversity across the mammal family tree by sequencing frozen museum tissues from nearly 600 species in 25 of 27 mammal orders, chosen to maximize evolutionary and geographic coverage.
Gustavo Hormiga
George Washington University, DC·Ecology & Evolution
Discover and formally describe new Neotropical velvet worm species in the family Peripatidae, combining high-throughput sequence data with modern morphological techniques to estimate the region's true species diversity.
Daniel Proud
Moravian University, PA·Ecology & Evolution·Early-career
Build a phylogenomic framework for two Neotropical harvestman clades using ultraconserved elements (UCEs), drawing specimens from natural history museum collections and field expeditions.
The school
Chicago State University: 1 labs on PI Pages, $3M a year on research, 2 research doctorates a year.
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