Texas Tech Health Research Benefits All

How can we better approach and solve the most pressing health problems our world faces today?

This question is at the heart of the Institute for One Health Innovation (IOHI), which was formally established in July 2024. Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) partnered together to develop scientists, health professionals, graduate students and postdoctoral trainees who can lead transdisciplinary research and advance innovative solutions by utilizing a One Health approach.

Joseph Heppert, vice president for Research & Innovation, sees the IOHI enabling Texas Tech opportunities to address pressing concerns, especially those faced by West Texans.

"The strong connection of the people and communities of West Texas with the land increases the likelihood that common human and animal health threats can emerge,” said Heppert. “Many recent and ongoing threats illustrate the importance of connecting human and community health and economic prosperity to health impacts on animal agriculture. This inter-reliance of communities with agriculture and the land makes a One Health model particularly relevant to this region.”

One Health looks at the ways humans, animals and the environment interact, influence and impact health. It takes on a transdisciplinary method where researchers from different fields collaborate with one another to better understand key aspects of a problem and potential cross-disciplinary solutions.

Lance McMahon, executive vice president for Research & Innovation at TTUHSC, believes the IOHI epitomizes the slogan “From Here, It’s Possible.”™

“We have the clinical research, clinical care and emphasis on community health engagement, and Texas Tech brings the environmental, agricultural and animal health,” he said about the collaboration between TTUHSC and Texas Tech. “We’re able to create something that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. It just wouldn’t be possible if we were working alone.”

Naima Moustaid-Moussa, executive director of the IOHI, said the partnership between TTUHSC and Texas Tech was prioritized from the beginning.

“TTUHSC is important for One Health because it brings in the human, medical and professional perspectives where we have limited expertise on the Texas Tech side,” said Naima Moustaid-Moussa, executive director of the IOHI. “We worked to identify the strengths of Texas Tech and TTUHSC and how we can enhance them to impact health and our recognition in this area.”

In addition to her role at the IOHI, Moustaid-Moussa is also a Horn Distinguished Professor of nutrition and One Health at the Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine and the founding director of the Obesity Research Institute, now the Center of Excellence in Obesity and Cardiometabolic Research. She also holds an academic appointment at the Department of Cell Biology & Biochemistry at TTUHSC School of Medicine and is completing a one-year term as president of the American Society for Nutrition.

One way the IOHI helps foster transdisciplinary collaboration is through several workshops and events throughout the year to facilitate and foster collaborations across the Texas Tech University System, as well as its Seed Grants program, which was launched in summer 2024. The program provides support for researchers to generate preliminary data to prepare One Health proposal submissions to external federal funding agencies. Each submission to the Seed Grants program requires at least one principal investigator from at least two of the system’s institutions: Texas Tech, TTUHSC and TTUHSC El Paso).

“It takes time and resources to develop new institutes and comprehensive transdisciplinary programs like this,” she said. “I spent the first year visiting TTU System institutions across the state to raise awareness about One Health and invited interested faculty to join and support IOHI efforts. We have established the foundation now, and we need to grow it, maintain it and expand it.”

Moustaid-Moussa is quick to note that One Health concept is not new, but it has expanded over the decades. It has gone from primarily exploring animal-to-human disease transmission to topics such as the bonds between humans and animals and how those relationships affect metabolic and brain health; environmental toxicology, including research on microplastics and other contaminants that threaten animal and human health; geosciences that explores extreme weather and its effects on health, agriculture and food systems; and global food supply and nutrition.

A broad approach means assessing problems and arriving at solutions from a more holistic perspective. This can change the way researchers and the general public consider food biosecurity issues, lifestyle and neighborhood environmental exposures from familiar ones like bird flu to reemerging issues like the New World Screwworm. 

Bird Flu Season

Commonly known as bird flu, the H5N1 strain of avian influenza has been in the forefront of the general public’s mind for the past several years. To call it a complex problem would certainly be an understatement.

Bird flu is highly contagious and incredibly lethal in poultry birds such as chickens and turkeys. 

While vaccines and control strategies exist in some settings, managing bird flue outbreaks in poultry remains highly challenging. Poultry producers need to act fast once the virus is detected. For many, the best course of action is to isolate the uninfected birds and cull the infected population. This has resulted in over 166 million poultry birds culled since 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

During the same span of time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service reported bird flu detection in more than 200 mammals, including a multistate outbreak among dairy cows. 

And while the CDC stresses the public health risk is low, the bird flu problem continues to grow each year. Researchers and producers are looking for ways to prevent, mitigate or deal with the problem by more effective means.

One Health can come into play by expanding the aspects of the issue including topics like the nutritional health of the poultry and surrounding environmental exposures. 

Janghan Choi is an assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources. His research focuses on gut microbiome ecology and applied nutrition in poultry and swine.

“My role is basically to formulate a really optimal diet to ensure the animals’ health and growth,” he said. 

Choi says feed can account for upward of 70% of the total costs to raise and produce animals. 

While poultry birds may often contract bird flu by interacting with wild birds, Choi says feed can potentially serve as a route for transmitting pathogens such as bird flu, salmonella and E. coli to poultry populations. 

A formaldehyde-based sanitizer is commonly used to sanitize feed because it is highly effective against pathogens. However, concerns regarding worker safety and handling requirements have increased interest in other approaches that may also support animal health and nutrition. 

“One of my research topics is to find alternatives to a formaldehyde-based sanitizer that can effectively control bird flu and other pathogens,” he said. “There is growing research showing that diet formulation – including the use of soybean meal and various bioactive compounds – may help support poultry health and resilience during disease challenges.”

One Health further helps us broaden the questions surrounding bird flu and the impacts of culling large populations of birds.

Choi notes that there is no perfect or humane method to depopulate thousands of birds at once. Obviously, animal health is a key factor here, but what about the human and environmental side?

“When we depopulate, obviously those birds cannot go to market,” he said. “But the regions are affected, too. It cuts into the food cycle and raises prices, but it also has an impact on the ground water and soil health.” 

As more One Health work is conducted, Choi hopes more producers and researchers provide support and open minds to animal nutrition when considering food biosecurity issues like bird flu.

A Returning Threat: New World Screwworm

Bird flu may be known in the public zeitgeist at this point, but the New World Screwworm (NWS) is having a bit of a renaissance as a reemerging issue.

The NWS is a parasitic fly that lays its eggs in open wounds and body openings like the eyes, ears, nose or mouth. After hatching, the larvae burrow into and feed on living tissue.

The NWS poses a pressing threat to animal producers, especially in states like Texas where cattle and livestock are major agricultural industries. 

The NWS was prevalent in the U.S. until the 1960s when it was pushed south past Panama and into South America. And while there have been no official recordings of the NWS within the U.S. today, cases in Central America have risen drastically since 2023. In fact, it was recently detected in cattle in Mexico, roughly 70 miles from the U.S. border.

“The reason this is such an important issue is it's knocking on the back door again and the memories of the devastation of this particular organism have disappeared from most of our minds,” said Chad Cross, professor of One Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine. “The people who were around in the 60s, the cowboys and the ranchers and those who had to deal with this, are largely no longer around.”

While a lack of collective memory about the NWS is concerning, Cross says Texas Tech is stepping up. He credits the School of Veterinary Medicine’s mission to address the needs of rural and regional communities and Texas Tech’s commitment to One Health.

“We have several governmental agencies who are working with local and statewide veterinarians and with the CDC,” he said. “Looking at human, animal and environmental health all together is how this problem is being approached.”

Communication and information sharing are vital components at this point. Texas Tech has a website providing educational resources about the NWS, including its lifecycle, the current situation, control and prevention measures, and planning steps.

The One Health approach has led to collaboration between local, state and federal parties with physicians, veterinarians and researchers.  

“We’re developing technologies at Texas Tech, as well as other universities here in Texas, to detect, prevent and address the issue from a foundationally interdisciplinary perspective,” Cross said. “We have participated in tabletop exercises that brought together several hundred folks and went through scenarios about how we would handle these things.”

Cross stressed that cattle and livestock producers across Texas should feel at ease knowing enormous interdisciplinary teams are already on the job.

“We're not going to have to come up with ideas once it happens,” he said. “There will be surprises along the way, but we have been preparing. From a disaster management perspective, which is a part of One Health, we have brought things into focus in a way that clarifies how we'll address the problem. We have started initial research and have policies in place. We have set aside funds to be able to deal with it, so we're ready for it.”