A single freezer inventory document that everyone must use, especially for samples! Each box has a specific position in the freezer, labeled as the location which has allowed us to recover from a freezer failure without everyone losing track of the boxes they need to find

One of the best parts of being at a land-grant university is the chance to connect field ecology, lab virology, and public health right here in our own community. Proud to contribute local science to global questions. @wsuvetmed.bsky.social

Huge shoutout to our co-first authors:
Grant Rickard (Undergraduate researcher now MD student) and Ricardo Rivero (PhD candidate) @ricardoriveroh.bsky.social
and many collaborators and local farmers who made this work possible 💫
@viralemergence.org

Timely as earlier this year, Whitman County reported a fatal case of HPS allowing us to share surveillance data with local & state Public Health partners. Even with our limited sample size, we detected viral reassortment and recovered two SNV genomes from voles (!!)

Last year, Whitmer et al. (CDC) highlighted a striking gap: a complete lack of SNV genomic data from the Northwestern US. Our small study begins to fill that gap, focusing on rodent surveillance in an agricultural region of Washington & Idaho.