Eda Altan

Background

About Eda Altan

My research aligns with the science of One Health to better understand the evolutionary patterns related to viruses in their host reservoirs from a fast-changing landscape of our modern world. This is important for emergency preparedness and response to zoonotic viruses that can spillover from wildlife to humans such as SARS-CoV-2. I have a multi-faceted approach within the One Health lens working with animals, humans, insects, and environmental samples which gave me a wide spectrum for virus discovery and evolution. With my veterinary background, I can better understand the pathogenesis related with a virus disease among wildlife as well as provide guidance for optimal sampling. Therefore, I could be able to discover a broad range of novel viruses from distinct animals and viral families. My benchwork is based on molecular virology, next-generation sequencing, and virus isolation. Recently I have been working on sequencing the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2 from clinical samples of cats and wastewater. These research ventures to date have resulted in 42 publications in peer-reviewed journals with an h index score of 13 and 399 citations.