The American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene has selected Dr. Albert To, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology & Pharmacology, as the recipient of the 2022 ASTMH Robert E. Shope Fellowship in Infectious Diseases. This is one of the Society’s premier awards and provides $25,000 to support international research in arbovirology and emerging infectious diseases.

Dr. To’s research project, entitled “Establishing the Spatial Distribution of Circulating Arboviruses in Urban and Rural Liberia”, will use a high-throughput, multiplex immunoassay to survey the prevalence of arbovirus infections in human and animal subjects in districts surrounding Monrovia, Liberia. The international research site of the study will be at the University of Liberia (UL) and the T.J.R. Faulkner College of Science & Technology, in mobile laboratories donated by the Baylor College of Medicine and the Paul Allen Foundation, under the mentorship of Dr. Peter S. Humphrey. Dr. To’s study will complement a cooperative, CDC-funded research project jointly led by scientists from University of Hawaii, UL and the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), focused on epidemiology and immunity to Ebola virus and other emerging viral infections in Liberia. In his application for this fellowship, Dr. To wrote “as a post-doctoral scientist interested mainly in arbovirus and other emerging infectious diseases, I feel that the only way to realize the true urgency and importance of my research is to visit and work with the people who are most affected by the disease. Conversations with my Liberian colleagues has brought into perspective how critically needed such research projects are in their country.”

Robert E. Shope, MD (1929 – 2004), was a clinician, virologist, and epidemiologist who devoted his career to the study of viruses carried by mosquitoes, ticks, and other biting insects. One of the world’s foremost authorities on insect-borne viruses, he discovered and characterized more previously unknown viruses than any other person in history. The Fellowship honors his significant contributions in the areas of arbovirology and emerging infectious diseases.