Professor and students study valley fever

Microbiologist Dr. Antje Lauer conducts environmental research with CSUB students

By California State University, Bakersfield

January 8^th, 2020

It isn’t a terribly warm welcome to the community, but newcomers to Bakersfield often are presented with a warning: Stay indoors on windy days or risk catching valley fever, a serious medical condition contracted by breathing in spores that live in Kern County’s soil. But when microbiologist Dr. Antje Lauer heard the precaution, it piqued her interest.

Dr. Lauer started at CSU Bakersfield in the fall of 2007, and within a year she started studying Coccidioides, the fungus responsible for valley fever. Found in the soil in certain areas, the fungus is dangerous, and sometimes even deadly, for those who breathe it.

Though plenty of research continues to be done on the medical side of the issue toward treatment and vaccines, environmental research like Dr. Lauer’s is much less common.

“My work is more targeted toward knowing the pathogen better to prevent disease,” Dr. Lauer said. “For example, when we figure out where the pathogen is growing and what actually spikes its growth in a particular area, we can maybe give recommendations that these soils should not be disturbed.”

Often what disturbs the soil is construction. With better knowledge of the pathogen, scientists like Dr. Lauer could recommend that a new solar range, for instance, shouldn’t be built in a certain area because of the likelihood of Coccidioides spores. Knowing that could allow developers to avoid areas that would make their workers and the community sick or be prepared for better dust mitigation

Student, Stephanie Ertell — Senior Stephanie Ertell, whose passion is microbiology, was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Antje Lauer studying valley fever.

“I really got interested in this field of research because I realized there is not much done regarding figuring out why the pathogen is successful in this habitat and why not in another one,” she said.

Early on in her research, Dr. Lauer took samples of soil and dust within the city of Bakersfield, in places like the fairgrounds and random parking lots.

“I just wanted to know if there were pockets within the city that support Coccidioides growth, and there were,” she said. “So, the pathogen is an opportunist. It depends, I believe, primarily on the other microorganisms that are already established in the soil, if it can start growing. That’s something that has not been researched in a lot of depth.”

Dr. Lauer and her students study the pathogen on a molecular level, using DNA extraction and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Her research has received funding from NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense. Another recent project, supported by the Council on Ocean Affairs, Science & Technology, studies valley fever in pinnipeds like seals and sea lions.

Student Jocelyne Lopez is one of the students working in Dr. Lauer's lab.

CSUB students like Stephanie Abarca, a senior studying human biology, work with Dr. Lauer obtaining and analyzing samples. Originally from Los Angeles (where there are also cases of valley fever), Abarca recalled the warnings she received about valley fever when friends and family learned she was going to Bakersfield, a highly endemic area of the pathogen.

“I had never heard of it until I came here,” she said. “I didn’t know much until I took Dr. Lauer’s medical microbiology class. That’s when I learned more about it, especially because Kern County has more cases than other counties.”

Stephanie Ertell, a senior studying biology, said microbiology is her passion and that she was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Lauer. Ertell has been extracting DNA from soil taken from Merced and will run PCR tests to see if the fungus is present.

Working with Dr. Lauer on this research “is very exciting because it affects our community and other areas that are similar to our climate,” Ertell said. “It’s something that’s not really well studied because it’s not worldwide, so it’s exciting to be a part of that research.”