Hello GRC:

An article below by The Wildlife Society that provides links to a recent paper in Ecological Modelling about the chimeric FV3-like ranavirus (recombinant with CMTV) that Tom phylogenetically characterized in 2017 (Claytor et al. 2017).  This story has been developing for about two decades — and links back to Greg’s original paper on RCV-Z (now we realize it was CMTV) in 2005 and Deb’s paper in 2007 from the same ranaculture facility.  It took a decade after Deb’s paper to figure out what Deb and Greg isolated, and how virulent (and consequential) viral recombination can be!  This is more evidence (in my opinion) to require clean trade of amphibians, especially for notifiable pathogens. 

https://wildlife.org/new-mutant-ranavirus-could-decimate-frogs/?fbclid=IwAR2mUVDvZHCbrV5gFBoRC2W2IM7hZs6u0aZKUdteBXDUcSI5LVhRFcJrpoE 

Aside from these findings — the GRC made these collaborations happen!  Because it wasn’t until we met Tom Waltzek at the 2nd International Symposium on Ranaviruses in Knoxville, that we decided to look deeper into the genetic composition of these (and other) isolates. There are so many of these examples of how folks met each other through the GRC that led to future collaborations and new findings that advanced our understanding of ranaviruses — and, pathogens in general!!  

All the Best, Matt