Dr. Shelley Rankin sees a silver lining in the dark cloud of COVID-19: “During my 30-year career, I’ve been at the intersection of animal and human diseases, studying Salmonella then staph infections and antibiotic resistant bacteria. Obviously, COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, so, aside from the very real and devastating impact on public health, it’s an interesting moment for science that looks at infectious disease. And I’ve been very busy.”
Working from her Ryan Hospital office most of the year, Rankin has been running the Microbiology diagnostic lab, designing a new research study to understand more about the virus in pets, and tracking existing research about animals who test positive. “Recently, I’ve written many angry letters and responded to a lot of media inquiries about flawed preprint studies.” The truth, she added, is that very little is known about the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, between pets and their owners, and much more robust research is needed.
She hopes to advance global knowledge on the subject and has enlisted Elizabeth Lennon, Pamela Cole Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, and Stephen Cole, V’15, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, in the first known community prevalence survey of COVID-19 in animals. They’ll test 1,500 dogs and cats initially in the hopes of filling cavernous gaps in current information about how animals acquire and transmit the virus that causes COVID-19.
With typical wit, Rankin shares the backstories of objects in her Ryan Hospital office.
1. Conference and concert badges. These are souvenirs from conferences around the world and VIP concert packages from the Fillmore Philadelphia theater. They remind me of gatherings or concerts I’ve been to — LCD Soundsystem was the best show I’ve ever seen, and the pass brings it all back.
2. “Essentials of academia.” Mugs for coffee. Wine glasses for happy hour. A soup bowl, because eating from a can is wrong. The candy machine was a gift so my office can have candy on hand without us having to reach into a shared bowl — even before COVID-19 all the hands in one bowl was gross. All of these, including the hidden bottle of triple sec, are essentials for academia.
3. Lipstick mirror and Old McDonald. I frequently apply lipstick. For a time, I shared an office with Tom Nolan [Director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory]. His wife, Linda, a microbiologist at Penn Medicine, visited our office regularly, and we’d chat for hours. She made me this cat mirror for lipstick application. It’s so pretty, I can’t bear to hang it. The framed card was a given to me when I celebrated 15 years at Penn Vet. It coincided with the point in my career when I decided I couldn’t be the microbiologist for both the large and small animal hospitals at Penn Vet. The card went right into the frame marking two milestones!
4. Spotted dick, plastic poop, champagne cork. Nikki Mason [The Paul A. James and Charles A. Gilmore Endowed Chair Professorship within the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine] bought me the “insta”-spotted dick pudding when I landed an office in Ryan Hospital after splitting time between Philadelphia and Kennett Square for years. I don’t have the heart to eat it. It’s five years old and probably petrified at this point.
I spent the first ten years of my career at the Scottish Salmonella Reference Laboratory in Glasgow. One thing that you do to diagnose Salmonella infection is record what poop looks like. This poop is conference swag.
The champagne cork is a remnant of the bottle we opened when Stephen [Cole] obtained his faculty position in early 2020. He’s an incredibly talented educator, mentor, and veterinary microbiologist. I was thrilled when he was hired.
5. Powerful! Instead of making a New Year’s resolution, I pick a word that becomes my mantra or touchpoint for the year. “Powerful” had an unexpected manifestation this year because of the way the pandemic unfolded. As a representative of Penn Vet and the science of microbiology, I have a unique power right now to help address and educate people about One Health. I feel more powerful at this stage in my career than I did when I chose the word at the beginning of the year. That’s the purpose of this annual exercise.
6. Art. (a) This is the tower of the University of Glasgow, my alma mater. My mother gave it to me when I moved to the U.S. in 1999. (b) Stephen gave me this when I hired him. I like to tease him that I gave him a faculty position and he gave me an E. coli print.