Environmental Microorganisms as Human Pathogens

描述（由申请人提供）：人体健康需要能够抵御来自不同环境来源的微生物的定植和渗透。许多众所周知的传染病，如艾滋病、疟疾和肺结核，都是由微生物引起的，这些微生物是人类的专业病原体。这些生物在生物医学研究意识的中心附近占有一席之地。围绕着这个中心的是一个弥漫的环境有机体星系，它们对人类造成重大的发病率和死亡率，但不是专业的人类病原体。这些制剂可造成各种毁灭性疾病，影响大量易感人群和亚群体，造成严重的经济影响和/或作为致命的生物战制剂。

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.