John Dennehy, Ph.D.
For astir of his life, John Dennehy, Ph.D., Professor of Biology astatine Queens College, City University of New York and Senior Editor of ASM’s Microbiology Resource Announcements tried to fell the information that helium was calved deaf. “For the archetypal 30-40 years I didn't privation radical to cognize due to the fact that I was acrophobic of being discriminated against,” helium explained. When asked what changed, helium gave a multifaceted answer. “Getting tenure and being unafraid successful my presumption surely helped,” helium said. “But also, the realization that I’m successful a presumption of influence, and I tin alteration the mode things are done."
Today, Dennehy uses a cochlear implant and a proceeding aid, and has go adept astatine speechmaking lips, but helium shared that being deaf has presented galore challenges passim his acquisition and career—many of which were much prevalent erstwhile helium was younger. “I was bullied a batch successful schoolhouse by my peers,” helium recounted, and though helium remembers having bully teachers, their advice, erstwhile it came to Dennehy’s aboriginal ambitions, was acold excessively often wrapped successful the soft bigotry of debased expectations.
At the time, Dennehy was considering the pursuit of a aesculapian degree, but his advisors openly doubted his quality to win successful this desired vocation path. “They would say, ‘what are you thinking? You're not going to beryllium a doctor; you're not going to beryllium capable to past successful assemblage oregon aesculapian school,’” Dennehy recalled, adding that today, though the favoritism whitethorn not beryllium rather arsenic overt, students with disabilities are inactive regularly encouraged to “be much realistic astir their goals."
Of course, you privation to marque accommodations,” Dennehy explained, “But not challenging the disabled and not expecting them to excel is demoralizing.” Fortunately, Dennehy has an “independent and stubborn” personality. “I don't perceive to different people, which served maine well, successful immoderate ways,” helium smiled.
Although Dennehy attended assemblage arsenic a pre-med student, helium elected not to be aesculapian school. Importantly, the alteration successful vocation way was prompted not by his disability, but by a formative acquisition grooming arsenic a phlebotomist astatine Lawrence General Hospital successful Massachusetts during his inferior twelvemonth of undergrad. “It disabused maine of immoderate romanticist conception to medicine,” helium explained, sharing that, contempt his passionateness for helping people, the unhappiness of sick patients and overworked staff, coupled with high-pressure scenarios, created a precise stressful moving environment. When Dennehy decided that helium did not privation to entertain that level of accent for the duration of his career, helium began investigating different applications for his biology degree.
He worked a fewer antithetic jobs—some biology-related and immoderate not—in hunt of his adjacent vocation move, but it was his clip moving “as a groundskeeper astatine a fancy resort” that crystallized his determination to prosecute biology arsenic an world discipline. It turned out, Dennehy’s brag was the lad of a celebrated ecologist astatine the University of Hawaii. The 2 shared a mutual interest successful biology, talking astir subject connected a regular basis, and it was that mentor who encouraged Dennehy to spell backmost to schoolhouse and prosecute a vocation successful academia.
Still, biology is simply a wide subject, and erstwhile it came clip to determine what benignant of probe to pursue, Dennehy reconnected with different passionateness from his childhood. “I grew up watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” helium said. “So, [I thought] possibly I should probe large mammals.” He earned his master’s grade astatine the University of Idaho moving with pronghorn, a taxon of mammal that is indigenous to interior occidental and cardinal North America and is colloquially known arsenic the American antelope. (This attribution is simply a misnomer, arsenic the pronghorn is not, successful fact, an antelope, but it does lucifer and capable a akin ecological niche arsenic the antelopes that unrecorded successful Africa, parts of the Middle East and Asia).
Today Dennehy is simply a microbiologist studying viruses. Although helium enjoyed ample mammal probe and recovered it incredibly fascinating, helium explained that watching his brag conflict to get backing motivated him to pivot to a caller probe focus. In hunt of broader funding, Dennehy targeted projects with wide nationalist wellness implications.
He accepted a probe adjunct presumption arsenic portion of a Ph.D. programme astatine Clark University studying delayed ovum hatching successful mosquitoes. After postgraduate school, Dennehy completed a postdoc with Paul Turner, Ph.D. at Yale University, studying bacteriophages and investigating however viruses tin leap from 1 big to another. He continued this enactment erstwhile helium obtained his module presumption astatine Queens College.
Then, successful precocious 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and similar galore microbiology labs astir the world, Dennehy and colleagues shifted gears to lend their skillsets to the survey of SARS-CoV-2. Along with his collaborators, Monica Trujillo, Ph.D, astatine Queensborough Community College and Mark Johnson, Ph.D., astatine University of Missouri, Dennehy began monitoring SARS-CoV-2 improvement done wastewater surveillance. Dennehy’s squad collected wastewater from each 14 sewersheds successful New York City and isolated SARS-CoV-2 RNA from the samples. On a play basis, they sequenced the receptor binding domain of the spike macromolecule from the collected isolates.
John Dennehy, Ph.D., monitors SARS-CoV-2 improvement done wastewater surveillance.
Source: John Dennehy, Ph.D.
The astir notable happening that we recovered was that determination were sequences successful wastewater that did not lucifer thing coming from immoderate patient,” helium shared. Often the sequences, which Dennehy’s squad called cryptic variants, were represented astatine specified precocious levels successful the wastewater that they overtook immoderate SARS-CoV-2 variant of interest was circulating astir dominantly astatine the time.
The squad has investigated a fewer imaginable explanations for the observed series saltation and is presently operating nether the moving proposal that the cryptic variants are coming from immunocompromised patients and different COVID-19 long-haulers who stay infected and incapable to wide the microorganism for extended periods of clip (from months to implicit a year).
“Over that play of time, the microorganism would proceed to evolve,” Dennehy explained. “And interestingly, [patients] were picking up galore of the aforesaid mutations that we were seeing successful wastewater sequencing."
When asked astir the functional consequences of the cryptic mutations, helium shared that determination was initially small overlap successful series similarity erstwhile Alpha, Beta and Delta were the circulating variants of concern. But when Omicron came connected the country the mutations abruptly appeared to beryllium much similar. “There are a mates of theories astir the root of Omicron,” said Dennehy. “One is that it came from mice; the different that it came from immunocompromised patients.” The second postulates that portion those patients remained persistently infected, the microorganism was capable to accumulate mutations.
According to Dennehy, his probe wasn’t the lone nonrecreational modality affected by the pandemic. He explained that helium has recovered online meetings and seminars, erstwhile closed captioning is available, to beryllium beneficial. In fact, galore communities person reported accrued accessibility owed to distant learning and league options. However, Dennehy stressed the value of forethought erstwhile it comes to the enactment of virtual oregon in-person events and initiatives.
“I deliberation organizers and radical who are successful complaint request to beryllium reasoning astir the consequences of everything they do, and excessively often we conscionable marque these genu jerk decisions and don’t interest astir who’s affected by it,” helium pointed out. In enactment of this statement, Dennehy shared examples from his ain beingness and those of his students and acquaintances wherever a peculiar organization enactment had important consequences (i.e., exclusion of a wheelchair accessible ramp to the graduation stage, deficiency of captioning astatine a peculiar summertime seminar league and locking of a assemblage gross that was located connected the regular way of a unsighted individual).
Dennehy said that by and large, helium does not deliberation these actions, oregon deficiency thereof, are coming from a spot of malintent. “There is simply a immense magnitude of disablement that I was ne'er alert adjacent existed,” helium shared. “And you would not cognize by looking astatine a idiosyncratic that they were disabled. But unless you're capable to marque accommodations for [people with disabilities] proactively, successful batch, you're de facto discriminating against them."
When asked what proposal helium would springiness to students from historically underrepresented communities, Dennehy said, “If you request something, you request to inquire for it. Don’t expect others to bash it for you.” He went connected to rapidly acknowledge, “It’s very, precise tricky, the benignant of proposal I americium giving, due to the fact that I cognize radical are reluctant to advocator for themselves. Particularly the disabled. Because you consciousness like, ‘oh, I don't privation to beryllium a burden.’” But helium emphasized that sometimes it is the astir businesslike pathway to success. “I consciousness a work to rise consciousness of the issues that radical face, for those who whitethorn not beryllium capable to advocator for themselves,” helium added. “I appreciate, precise much, the accidental to talk up."
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