The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture announced that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded $7.1 million in funding to establish the new Vector-Borne Disease Regional Training and Evaluation Center (VectorED Network). The new initiative—involving a multidisciplinary partnership between researchers at the University of Tennessee, The Pennsylvania State University, The Ohio State University, and the University of Delaware—will seek to prevent and raise awareness for vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease.
One such researcher, Becky Trout Fryxell, MSc, PhD, was appointed to the new VectorED Network to recruit education specialists; train the next generation of public health entomologists; assess current tactics in vector-borne disease control and prevention; and optimize disease education for undergraduate and graduate students, pest control managers, veterinarians, public health professionals, and environmental health and safety teams. Dr. Trout Fryxell currently serves as Associate Professor of Entomology and Plant Pathology at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, where she focuses her research on vector and pathogen control, surveillance, ecology, and genetics, as well as human and animal health. “Tennessee … [has] seen an increase in many vector-borne diseases … [as] tick species are expanding their distributions. Part of this funding will be used to help create the public health educational infrastructure our state needs,” concluded Dr. Trout Fryxell.