Stumbling across an unidentified large black bug in your house may make you feel panicked or even curious. Should you smash it with a nearby shoe? Or scoop it up in a cup and release it outside?

If that insect happens to be a kissing bug, you have another option-send it to Dr. Sarah Hamer and her research team at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM).

Kissing bugs-also known as cone-nose bugs, or triatomine insects-feed on human and animal blood. The insects are of particular interest to Hamer because of their potential to transmit the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas disease, a malady that can lead to acute or chronic heart disease or death in humans, pets, and wildlife. Acute heart disease is severe and has a sudden onset, while chronic heart disease develops over a long period of time.

There is a significant human health burden of Chagas disease in Central and South America and Mexico, where medical doctors are generally aware of the risk of disease. There is far less awareness for the disease in the U.S., despite estimates of over 300,000 infected people in the country.

While many of these individuals are likely to have contracted the disease in Latin America before moving to the U.S., there is increasing recognition for locally acquired human infections in the southern states, where infected kissing bugs are widespread. A growing number of dogs across the South are recognized to be infected, possibly from consuming infected bugs in the environment. While some infected dogs may live happy, health lives, others may die acutely or suffer chronic cardiac disease. Because there is no vaccine and treatment options are limited, efforts to control the vectors and parasite in nature may hold the key for disease prevention.

To better understand the risk of Chagas disease in the southern United States, Hamer and her team are taking an ecological approach to characterize the transmission cycles so that the parasite can be managed in nature before it spills over to humans and dogs. They are gauging infection and cardiac health status in pet dogs, working dogs, and shelter dogs across the state. And they are trapping kissing bugs to learn about their infection and feeding patterns across different regions.

When Hamer and her team started researching Chagas disease, they decided it was best to collect bugs from across Texas to address different research questions about the bug’s ecology. However, setting traps for the bugs was inefficient and did not provide enough for research; Hamer said her team often came up empty handed or had few bugs to work with from the field.

After talking to land owners, Hamer realized that many people are familiar with the kissing bug and have seen them on their property.

“People started hanging on to some of these bugs that they would see in their houses or in their dog kennels,” Hamer said. “They would put them in an old pill container or plastic bag and save them for us, and the next time we were out doing field work, we’d look at them.”

As the project grew to emphasize citizen science, the team’s research power expanded; citizen involvement granted the team access to more samples than they could ever dream of collecting themselves.

“We now have well over 3,000 bugs in our collection, which is bigger than any other collection of kissing bugs in the United States,” Hamer said. “Our students still are out actively trapping bugs, but we can’t match the effort of the citizen scientists. It’s huge, and it’s awesome.”

With so much citizen involvement, the program evolved to include outreach materials, such as a website with an interactive map to show where kissing bugs have been collected, informational pamphlets, and an established email account to answer questions and further include the public on the project. Hamer sees the outreach component as a way to educate the public about kissing bugs and protect the public’s health, as well as the health of pets and surrounding wildlife.

While citizen scientists are often interested in knowing whether the bug they submitted is infected, Hamer says the result of any single bug is less informative than the overall epidemiology of the vectors. Finding an infected bug in the yard does not mean the family members or the family dog are at immediate risk for the disease but broadly suggests the region around the home is suitable for kissing bugs and Chagas disease, Hamer said. The team often educates the public specifically about how the disease is transmitted to help the public make decisions about their health.

In fact, Hamer said the route of transmission for Chagas disease can be rather inefficient-the cycle of the disease begins when a kissing bug feeds on the blood of an infected host. But unlike mosquitoes or ticks, kissing bugs cannot spread the parasite by simply biting another animal or person. Instead, the parasite occurs in the bug’s feces, and, therefore, the bug must defecate on a person or animal and the infected fecal material must be absorbed into the skin through the eyes, mouth, or a wound created by the kissing bug biting the victim. That series of events can be a rare occurrence, especially given a good standard of housing where bugs are unlikely to colonize inside the homes to reach people. However, oral transmission can also occur, and Hamer said dogs can contract the disease by consuming an infected kissing bug.

Once inside the new host, the parasite circulates in the blood for some time and then can infect different organs, including the heart, where it replicates, causing damage to the heart tissue cells. Over time, more and more heart tissue cells are destroyed, which can lead to heart disease.

While the effects of Chagas can be fatal, many infected individuals may never know they have been infected. It’s not possible to predict which infected individuals will suffer disease, and so physicians and veterinarians have a difficult time discussing the prognosis. Hamer said some people infected with Chagas may find out after donating blood, since blood banks now routinely screen for Chagas antibodies.

Because there is no cure for Chagas disease, only treatments to manage the symptoms, Hamer emphasizes that studying the parasite in bugs and wildlife can provide key data to protect the health of humans and dogs, and public outreach is a key component.

“We are working on a cell phone app as a future direction to enhance our outreach and research,” Hamer said. “People can upload pictures of their bugs and the app will time stamp it and mark it with location data. In addition, the app will also be a simple interface to get good information about kissing bugs and Chagas disease.”

The team is collaborating with other veterinarians, parasitologists, entomologists, geographers, diagnosticians, and public health officials at Texas A&M, the state health department, other universities-including in Mexico and Brazil-and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Without collaboration and teamwork, Hamer’s research interests and efforts to educate the public about Chagas would not be possible.

To learn more and submitting a kissing bug to the TAMU Citizen Science Kissing Bug program visit kissingbug.tamu.edu.

Aging is a universal experience, shared by both humans and animals. But many mysteries still surround the aging process. Now, a collaborative project between the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM), the University of Washington, and other colleges and organizations is set to chip away at these mysteries to better understand how our canine companions age both physically and mentally.

The Dog Aging Project is an innovative proposal to study aging in pets, to benefit their health and longevity, according to Dr. Kate Creevy, chief veterinary officer on the Dog Aging Project and associate professor at the CVM.

“The things that we can learn about dogs to benefit them also can benefit people,” she said. “We hope that our interest in studying the dog for its own sake provides terrific benefit to people, as well.”

Starting with understanding and characterizing how dogs age, the project seeks to build upon what little information currently exists to describe normal aging in various sizes and breeds, Creevy said. This not only will help veterinarians better treat aging canines, but it will help researchers understand conditions such as diabetes and arthritis that affect both dogs and humans as they age.

Dogs of All Shapes and Sizes

Approximately 10,000 dogs of varying ages and breeds living throughout the United States will be enrolled in the project, accounting for a sample size that is representative enough to describe aging in a typical dog. The study will take a long-term look at the health of dogs in their natural environment over five to 10 years, making middle-aged dogs particularly valuable candidates for the study.

Enrolled dogs will live out their days as they normally would, seeing their regular veterinarians, which will allow dogs across the country to conveniently participate.

They will be divided into two subsets, a more closely monitored group and a less closely monitored group. Each group will contribute unique data to the project.

For the closely monitored group, local veterinarians will collect regular blood and urine samples that will be sent to Creevy and her team, who will also assess the dogs’ medical records and remain in close contact with the veterinarians. Researchers also will regularly communicate with owners about their dogs’ routines.

The less-closely monitored subset comprises dogs that will provide genetic samples, which will help the research team understand the genetic origins of age-related diseases. Researchers also will monitor the dogs’ medical records.

“It is our goal to make the portion of the dogs who are closely monitored a larger and larger group by continuing to obtain additional funding,” Creevy said.

Exercising Body and Mind

Because activity levels are known to influence health, the Dog Aging Project also will use monitors to measure levels of activity, heart rate, and other vital parameters in some dogs. Using accelerometers will provide the researchers with important health information about the dogs’ activity levels, which likely also will be of interest to owners, Creevy said.

“We will be interested in that data for research, but the owners also will have access to that data,” she said. “For example, if an owner wants to know how much her dog runs around the house when she’s not home, she can.”

Physical health is not the only thing that the researchers are investigating; the Dog Aging Project also aims to understand and characterize how dogs’ brains age. Through the project, owners will have access to a website that allows dogs and owners to play various games to assess different aspects of cognition.

“It’s not about whether your dog is smarter or dumber; it’s about how your dog thinks and if certain breeds and ages of dogs tend to think the same way,” said Creevy, adding that the tests will allow owners to bond with and understand their dogs.

The Big Picture

Creevy’s research is a first step in providing a foundation for future canine aging research. The field is so cutting-edge, many of its questions have yet to be discovered.

“We won’t really know what some of the data means at the time that we collect it,” she said. “We won’t know what it means until we’ve captured the information from a lot of dogs and have had time to see how their lives unfolded.

“(Likewise) Some of the information we’ll be giving back to owners won’t be of immediate use to them, but as the research progresses and some of that information develops new meanings, they’ll be able to use the information to better understand their dogs,” Creevy said.

By providing this fundamental knowledge, the Dog Aging Project has the potential to help support a new field in veterinary medicine-geriatrics.

“One of the things that’s true about veterinary medicine is we do not currently have a specialty in geriatrics the way they do in human health,” Creevy said. “Certainly as people age, you see a gerontologist. We do not currently have a specialty of veterinary gerontology. Defining what the typical or normal old dog looks like is our first challenge.”

Creevy also anticipates people becoming more aware of the Dog Aging Project and to have future collaborations with groups that want to further examine certain variables, such as diet, exercise, and even certain medications. These variables could impact canine aging and, in turn, affect human aging.

New Tricks

In many ways, dogs mirror their owners. By sharing the same habits, dogs can serve as a model for human conditions, such as obesity, cancer, and arthritis. But dogs are not only helping people; people are helping dogs, as well.

“We have chosen to use models from human medicine to identify some of the diseases we think are going to be the most important to healthful aging, because the diseases that dogs experience in aging are, in many ways, very similar to people,” Creevy said. “Obesity is a big problem for dogs, just as it is for people in this country. Cancer is a big problem for dogs, just as it is for people in this country. They get low thyroid function or hypothyroidism. We consider all of those to be very, very important diseases of dogs.”

Creevy said aging sometimes can be associated with dogs losing interest in daily life, becoming difficult to interact with, and losing normal control of food and bathroom times. These things can be a challenge for aging people, as well.

“Trying to understand dogs who end up experiencing those conditions, versus the dogs who don’t, may lead to some way we could interact with dogs younger in life to decrease the likelihood of these outcomes,” Creevy said.

Ultimately, it’s the love humans have for their dogs that helps push the research forward, Creevy said.

“We’re trying to be on the cutting edge, and I think we are inspired by the fact that dogs are so important to people,” she said. “There is no limit to the things owners would do to try to promote healthy, enjoyable lives for their dogs. Because that’s true, we’re capable of pushing the research envelope and asking questions that haven’t previously been asked because dog owners are willing and able to help us.”

Discovery and the unexpected—these are recurring themes in the research career of Dr. Stephen Safe, a distinguished professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM). Trained as a chemist, Safe eventually found himself studying toxicology and examining the biochemical mechanisms of cancer with the hopes of developing effective drug treatments.

Safe looks at receptors, a molecular lock to which chemical signals are the keys. When these chemical signals bind to the receptor, or turn the metaphorical key, it leads to a Rube Goldberg–like process, where one action affects another and then another, ultimately powering various biological processes.

“Receptors are needed for life,” Safe said. “They are sensing molecules. They sense light. For example, you need sunlight to produce Vitamin D. What does Vitamin D do? It would do nothing if there wasn’t a Vitamin D receptor.”

And, it all started with a single receptor—the aryl hydrocarbon, or AH, receptor. Known to play a role in a chemical’s toxicity in the body, the AH receptor was not known for its health benefits. However, research trends led Safe and his colleagues to suspect that this receptor’s function was far from black and white. There were, in fact, health benefits yet to be uncovered.

“I started off working on toxic compounds that bound to the AH receptor. It was always thought to be a receptor that was important for driving toxicity of various chemicals that bound to it,” Safe said. “Many people have discovered in the last 20 years that this receptor plays a huge role in all sorts of things, including the health of your gut, the health of your skin, and autoimmune diseases. We’ve been looking at ligands—or compounds that bind this receptor—that aren’t toxic. We’re using them for treating cancers, and investigating the heath benefits of the receptors in gut microbiota.”

Excited by the possible health benefits associated with the AH receptor, Safe began looking for practical solutions to ailments such as pancreatic cancer. Through partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, Safe is working toward developing effective drug treatments that would specifically focus on receptors like the AH and NR4A1 receptors to promote pathways that prevent cancer growth. “We’ve got a new group of drugs that look like they’re really going to knock your socks off,” Safe said.

Safe’s interest in the AH receptor has stimulated an interest in other receptors, such as NR4A1, which Safe and his colleagues are investigating for the treatment of multiple cancers including rhabdomyosarcoma—a devastating children’s cancer. “We think the AH and NR4A1 receptors are really important in cancer, and we’ve been developing drugs that target them through different pathways,” he said.

Developing these drugs can be a balancing act, looking for the appropriate dose to ensure effectiveness. “We’re trying to develop drugs that we can give at a much lower concentration to hopefully be below the toxic threshold. We think that they have relatively low toxicity and expect that the side effects will be minimal. In addition, they’re also useful for combination therapies.”

Safe’s fascination with the AH receptor has caused his research to take an unexpected turn. In collaboration with other researchers at Texas A&M, he is focusing on the effects of microbial and food-derived AH-receptor compounds on gut health. For example, eating cruciferous vegetables, such as cabbage, could provide similar effects as the compounds acting on the AH receptor. “Maybe plants that produce a lot of AH receptor compounds, like cruciferous vegetables, which are known to be health-protective, could be combined with what the microbiota produces. The two in combination could be dynamite,” he said.

The twists and turns of Safe’s research has led to continuous learning and a deep curiosity. “The good thing for me is I started off as a chemist and all we do in my lab is oncology and molecular biology. So, I’m learning all the time,” he said. Beyond the AH receptor discovery, Safe continues to search for much needed practical, life-saving therapies.