Since the beginning of the 21st century, a number of novel viruses, including avian influenza A H7N9 virus, Bundibugyo virus, Heartland virus, human metapneumovirus, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), and, most recently, SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have emerged in the human population and have proven to be formidable threats to public health.
Research in my laboratory is currently focused on four specific areas concerning emerging viruses:
- Surveillance for emerging pathogenic viruses in arthropods collected in Indiana and abroad
- Surveillance for emerging pathogenic viruses in bats and rodents collected in Indiana and Central America
- Investigating the pathogenicity of tick-borne viruses endemic to the U.S. Midwest
- Development and refinement of diagnostics for emerging viruses, including arenaviruses, bunyaviruses, filoviruses, orthomyxoviruses, and paramyxoviruses.
Dr. Relich is very interested in the diagnosis of infectious diseases, especially viral diseases, and implementation of new diagnostic methods such as matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), real-time polymerase chain reaction, and next-generation sequencing for the identification of pathogens. In addition, he is interested in classical virological methods, such as cultivation, serology, and electron microscopy, for detection of viruses in clinical specimens.
Dr. Ryan Relich is an American Board of Medical Microbiology-certified medical microbiologist who is passionately interested in all facets of diagnostic microbiology and laboratory medicine, especially laboratory directorship, infectious disease epidemiology and pathology, new diagnostic test development and evaluation, pathogen discovery, and viral ecology.
In his current academic position at the Indiana University School of Medicine, he is actively involved in fellow, resident, and student teaching, and research involving in vitro diagnostic product development, clinical trials, and emerging virus ecology.
Dr. Relich is immensely interested in the ecology of emerging viruses, pandemic preparedness, development of dignostics for novel viruses, virus discovery and characterization, and establishing best practices for manipulating highly infectious clinical specimens for routine diagnostic testing.
