health

Preventing The
Next Pandemic

Scientist from
West Bloomfield hunts
and kills deadly viruses
before they can get us.

Dr. Nathan Wolfe, a former Detroiter
known as "the virus hunter"

Jeff Kranitz
Special To The Jewish News

H

undreds filled the auditorium
inside the Berman Center for the
Performing Arts to welcome home
renowned biologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe.
He was there to discuss his new book,
Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic
Age, at the 60th Annual Jewish Book Fair
at the Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield. The book offers a modernized
perspective on the dangers created by undis-
covered viruses that lurk in several remote
regions in the world.
Wolfe, named one of the 100 most influ-
ential people in the world by Time magazine,
is a 41-year-old visiting professor at Stanford
University as well as founder and CEO of the
Global Viral Forecast Initiative. GVFI is head-
quartered in San Francisco.
The nonprofit group works to locate and
kill deadly diseases before they kill us, a new
approach that has revolutionized epidemiol-
ogy. It has projects set up in Africa, Southeast
Asia and southern China, totaling 20 differ-
ent countries. Since founding GVFI in 2007,
Wolfe has been called the most prominent
virus hunter on the planet.

Once in a viral hot spot, the goal is to dis-
cover and contain any threatening microbes
before they become the next HIV or SARS.
Instead of waiting for an ambush, they're
taking the fight to the enemy. And make no
mistake — it's dirty, dangerous work.
Wolfe has had malaria three times. The
last bout almost killed him.

New Viral War
In Central Africa, where Wolfe has worked
for more than a decade, hundreds of thou-
sands of people still hunt and consume
tropical wild game, called bushmeat.
Bushmeat is virtually the only source of
protein in this desperately poor part of the
world, but it comes with risks. Viruses can
pass between animals and hunters during
the bloody process of killing and butchering.
"This is a place where people can have
contact with animals and their viruses
and spark a real pandemic," Wolfe said to a
packed audience. "It all comes together here."
GVFI gets involved on a number of fronts.
Staff members help educate hunters, inform-
ing them of the potential risks and the ways
to protect themselves.
GVFI also collects blood samples from the
hunters and their prey. This gives biologists

an understanding of what's being passed on
from animal to human. Some of the most
recent pandemics — including HIV, bird flu
and smallpox — all started out as viruses
that jumped from animals to people.
"We see new retroviruses out there — the
category of HIV — and we're very con-
cerned because this is the part of the world
where HIV jumped from chimpanzees to
humans': he said.
Wolfe also says the world is now more vul-
nerable to pandemic than ever before. The
population is constantly growing — 7 billion
now — most of whom are packed into dense
cities. Globalization and greater connectivity
add to the danger.
"If you look now at air traffic maps, you
see basically a plate of spaghetti': he said.
"There are incredible connections — air-
lines and boats are moving humans and
animals around the globe. The features of
globalization have huge consequences on
pandemics. It just connects us so much more
closely.
"As a consequence, every one of these
viruses that passes from animals to humans
has the capacity to infect all of us."
In Viral Storm, Wolfe says it's not a ques-
tion of if that will happen, but when.

Breeding Ground
Three decades ago, Nathan Wolfe was a
bright, curious student at Abbott Middle
School in West Bloomfield. The son of
Charles Wolfe and Carole Wittenberg, he had
a reputation as a dedicated, hard worker.
"I grew up just a few miles away (from the
JCC), where I practiced on the swim team.
I was about the same age then as my niece
Taylor or nephew Nathan': he said, acknowl-
edging his family members in the audience.
Wolfe graduated from West Bloomfield
High in 1988. He earned a biology degree
from Stanford, and then attended graduate
school at Harvard University, where, as he
began studying the diseases of chimps, his
interest in epidemiology grew.
"I'm fascinated by the microbes that sur-
round us',' he said. "If you imagine individu-
als who go out and spend their lives studying
primates, well, they're unlikely to identify
any new species. Understanding the unseen
world of microorganisms around us gives
us tremendous potential to not only solve
important infectious diseases, but to make
fundamental new discoveries about the
nature of our world.
"Viruses are the most numerous biologi-
cal entity on our planet," Wolfe said. "If aliens
were tasked with writing a 30-volume ency-
clopedia of life on Earth, from a biological
perspective, 27 volumes would be devoted
to this unseen world of microorganisms,
including bacteria and viruses:'
The reality Wolfe says, is we are not the
dominant species of life on this planet.
"If we were to count the number of cells
between the top of your head and the socks
on your feet, we would find that 90 percent of
those cells are not human cells. Ninety per-
cent of those cells belong to various microor-
ganisms that exist, primarily in your gut and
on your skin but also in many, many parts of
your body."
To be fair, Wolfe points out that he means
dominant in terms of diversity, not size.
Wolfe views this unseen and vastly unex-
plored microbial world as a potentially valu-
able resource for all sorts of new medicine.
"Right now we suddenly have the tools to
understand this incredible unseen world': he
said. II

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