Environmental Microorganisms as Human Pathogens

描述(申请人提供)：人类健康需要能够承受来自不同环境来源的微生物的侵袭和渗透。许多众所周知的传染病，如艾滋病、疟疾和结核病，都是由专业的人类病原体微生物引起的。这些生物在生物医学研究意识的中心附近占据了一席之地。围绕着这个中心的是一个扩散的环境微生物星系，它们会对人类造成显著的发病率和死亡率，但不是专业的人类病原体。这些病原体是破坏性疾病的罪魁祸首，可影响大量人口、易感人群的亚群、产生严重的经济影响和/或成为致命的生物武器病原体。 环境病原体，定义为从环境水库获得的人类病原体，构成了独特的挑战。环境病原体的一个共同特征是，它们的特征，包括感染易感人类的能力，已经在非人类环境中进化并保持。这引发了一些耐人寻味的根本性问题。环境生物如何获得感染人类的能力？这个问题的答案是否告诉了我们任何有关地球上传染病进化的信息？他们使用什么适应和调节机制来在非人类环境和人类环境之间进行转换？环境物种在传染性方面是异质性的吗？如果是，我们如何评估感染的风险？新出现的挑战，如全球气候变化和生物武器的威胁，可能会从根本上改变人类与环境病原体相互作用的性质，以难以预测的方式影响疾病流行。即使没有这样的挑战，环境病原体引起的疾病的流行程度在很大程度上也是未知的。这对环境监管机构、饮用水公用事业公司和其他需要知道他们应该担心哪些环境病原体的人构成了挑战。 环境病原体科学往往处于传染病研究和环境微生物学之间的灰色地带。美国微生物学会计划于2004年2月6日至8日在亚利桑那州图森市召集一组国际专家，讨论与环境病原体有关的问题和挑战。约30名科学家将应邀参加这次座谈会。我们计划弥合公共卫生专业人员、医学研究人员、环境卫生科学家和那些关心国土安全的人之间存在的沟通差距。在座谈会之后，将编写一份报告-印刷版和电子版-这份报告将是分析性的和全面的，但对未来提出切实可行的建议。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Human health requires the ability to withstand colonization and infiltration by microorganisms from diverse environmental sources. Many well-known infectious diseases--such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis--are caused by microorganisms that are professional human pathogens. These organisms occupy a place near the center of biomedical research awareness. Surrounding this center is a diffuse galaxy of environmental organisms that inflict significant morbidity and mortality in humans, but are not professional human pathogens. These agents are responsible for devastating forms of disease that can affect large populations, subpopulations of susceptible individuals, have serious economic impact and/or serve as deadly biowarfare agents. Environmental pathogens, defined as human pathogens that are acquired from environmental reservoirs, pose unique challenges. A common feature of environmental pathogens is that their traits, including the ability to infect susceptible humans, have evolved and are maintained in non-human environments. This raises intriguing fundamental questions. How do environmental organisms gain the ability to infect humans? Does the answer tell us anything about the evolution of infectious diseases on earth? What adaptive and regulatory mechanisms do they use to make the transition between nonhuman and human environments? Are environmental species heterogeneous with regard to infectivity, and, if so, how to we assess the risk of infection? Emerging challenges, such as global climate change and the threat of biowarfare, could radically alter the nature of human interactions with environmental pathogens, affecting disease prevalence in ways that are difficult to predict. Even without such challenges, the prevalence of diseases caused by environmental pathogens is, for the most part, unknown. This poses a challenge for environmental regulators, drinking water utilities, and others who need to know which environmental pathogens they should worry about. The science of environmental pathogens often falls into a gray zone between infectious disease research and environmental microbiology. The American Academy of Microbiology plans to convene a group of international experts for a colloquium February 6-8, 2004, in Tucson, Arizona, to address the problems and challenges associated with environmental pathogens. A group of approximately 30 scientists will be invited to participate in this colloquium. We plan to bridge the gaps in communication that exist between public health professionals, medical researchers, environmental health scientists, and those concerned with homeland security. Following the colloquium, a report will be developed--in both print and electronic formats--that will be analytical and comprehensive, yet offer practical recommendations for the future.