COMMUNITY SCIENCE :: NONTUBERCULOUS MYCOBACTERIAL PULMONARY DISEASE IN HAWAI’I
Dr. Jennifer Honda ’93, a tenured associate professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, is a microbiologist who has devoted the past two decades to the study of nontuberculous
“Being a local girl from O‘ahu, elucidating the environmental, host, and NTM factors that contribute to this lung disease is critical. It’s a disease that affects kūpuna,” said Honda, also noting that Hawai‘i has the highest per-capita prevalence of NTM pulmonary disease in the nation. NTM are bacteria that live in the environment but are typically contracted through repeat exposure to indoor and outdoor plumbing systems like showerheads. The NTM bacteria is also found in soil and dust. In 2017, Dr. Honda tapped ‘Iolani School and its ‘Āina- Informatics Network to assist with the largest NTM environmental sampling campaign ever performed. Funded by a $2.6 million research award from the National Science Foundation Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease program, the project involved 400 local students from 11 Hawai‘i schools and their mentors, including ‘Iolani alumnus Dr. Jonathan Awaya ’95, a professor of biology at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Together, they collected more than 3,000 household and non- household environmental samples from O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i Island, and Maui. Using cutting edge technologies, including the MinION, the sequenced NTM genomes found in the samples will help determine which strains best match those found in the lungs of
mycobacteria (NTM) pulmonary disease, a mounting public health concern.
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