2 years ago, I was involved in the NIH Prototype Pathogen workshop, the goal of which was to lay out gaps in knowledge and research priorities for prototype viruses from viral families that NIAID wants to emphasize. Peter Myler (Seattle Children’s) and I chaired the Bunyavirales group. This means we needed to address 4 viral families (Peribunyaviridae, Nairoviridae, Hantaviridae, and Phenuiviridae). This is a difficult task due to the diversity of the Bunyavirales. For those of you that are taxonomically astute, note that I did not list the arenaviridae because they were considered by another group. :-)
We assembled a group of subject matter experts across these families to brainstorm appropriate pathogens and areas of need. We wrote this summary article that was finally published in JID.
Hartman, A.L. and Peter J. Myler. Bunyavirales: Scientific Gaps and Prototype Pathogens for a Large and Diverse Group of Zoonotic Viruses. 2023. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 228, Issue Supplement 6, 15 October 2023, Pages S376–S389, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiac338. PMID: 37849397.
There is an entire JID supplement that covers the NIAID Prototype Pathogen approach and has all of the summary articles from the working group. NIAID also wrote about it on their website. Check it out!
