Brooklin Hunt, PhD/DVM, USA
“How is bat health related to spillover, and how can we develop our understanding of bat health?”
Reservoir health and immune function are critically important in the process of pathogen spillover yet remain poorly understood in nearly every bat virus spillover system. I am working under the guidance of Dr. Raina Plowright and Dr. Manuel Ruiz-Aravena to improve our empirical understanding of bat health and immune defense. To do this, I study the hematology of Australian black flying foxes (Pteropus alecto). Hematology is simply the study of blood, and by characterizing and quantifying blood cells I can gather valuable information on the physiological status and immune function of bats. Early on in this project, I worked to characterize the morphology of black flying fox blood cells. More recently I have been examining the impact of biological and seasonal variables on the white blood cell profiles of these bats. I hope to dive deeper into hemoparasite infections and the effect of stress on white blood cell profiles in future phases of my on-going hematology project.
Overall, my work is expanding our empirical knowledge of bat health and immune defense, which will allow a better understanding of the relationships between bat health and pathogen spillover. I hope that someday we will understand these relationships well enough to develop effective countermeasures to stop bat virus spillover.
Recent Milestones:
Received research grant from the Montana Academy of Sciences (November 2021)
Submitted a manuscript about black flying fox (Pteropus Alecto) leukocyte morphology and quantities to PLoS ONE. (November 2021)
Presented at the Montana State University Freshman Research Symposium (October 2021)
Completed statistical analysis to examine biological and seasonal predictors of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio data (October 2021)
Photographed for article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (October 2021)
Education:
Montana State University — Bozeman, Montana (Aug 2018 — Dec 2022)
Bachelor of Science: Pre-veterinary Microbiology and Animal Systems Biotechnology (dual major), Animal Genetics minor, summa cum laude
Iowa Wesleyan University & Loop Abroad — Online (2020)
Online courses: Elephant Medicine, African Big Cat Biology
Cornell University Summer College — Ithaca, New York (2017)
Captive Raptor Management & Propagation
Texas A&M University — Online (2016)
Veterinary Assisting (Level I)