A recent New York Times article on the white-nose syndrome that "is not only devastating bats, but also the ecosystems in which they live" features our own alumna Dr. Giorgia G. Auteri.
[exc] "Back in 2014, Dr. Auteri brought some of the dead bats from the Michigan cave to her lab to study. She said it felt like a form of grieving, of bearing witness to a catastrophe that seemed unstoppable.
But a decade later, her grief has turned into hope. Dr. Auteri and other researchers have made some crucial insights about how white-nose syndrome kills bats, and that knowledge has inspired a campaign to stop the mass death. Now, scientists are attacking the fungus and finding ways to help bats survive infections." [exc]
Dr. Auteri graduated from EEB in 2022 and it's worth noting that she did the genomic work as part of her PhD. Along with her faculty adviser, professor L. Lacey Knowles, they published their research on the "first genetic evidence of resistance in some bats to white-nose syndrome" in 2020, giving the first glimpse of hope -that turned into national news!
