James Childs is a hunter of microbes

By Dorothy S. Pam

Alas, poor Yorick: Microbe hunter Jamie Childs has his hands full in the challenging world of medicine.

Jamie Childs, (or Dr. James Childs as he is known in scientific circles), is a man who is comfortable with nature – enjoying fishing, duck hunting and hiking. But his fascination with the natural world doesn’t stop there. Down to the smallest organism striving to replicate itself and thus survive, Childs decided to make science his life’s work. “I was very lucky to have spent my childhood playing in the fields and streams of Norfolk and to be guided by my father, [Richard Childs], whose wide ranging interests in nature and medicine had a profound influence on my choice of profession,” he says.

Under the inspired teaching of Dr. James Simmons at Washington University, Childs changed his major from fine arts to psychology in order to study animal behavior and neurophysiology. “I’d been an indifferent student,” he confesses, “until I fell in love with science my sophomore year.” He graduated summa cum-laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

At Johns Hopkins University, where he did his doctoral studies, Childs studied zoonotic pathogens transmitted by urban cats to humans. One, striking observation was that where feral cats were most abundant was the same location where urban rats where most common. Because rats, carriers of many pathogens, eat out of the same garbage as feral cats, the results made possible a statistical model of areas where humans were most exposed to rodent-borne toxoplasmosis and viruses.

While pursuing post doctoral studies as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at Fort Detrick, Childs worked on Hantavirus in rats. These studies turned out to be highly relevant in defining the cause of the1993 outbreak of a related hantaviral disease in the Southwestern United States traced to wild mice.

Experience with rodent-associated viruses led to a contract as part of a vaccine trial in Argentina to prevent a disease causes by a similar virus causing severe and often fatal disease. During his five years of research in Argentina he came to appreciate the beauty of the country, as well as the potential for duck hunting in the unexploited environment, ultimately leading to the establishment of a hunting lodge purchased with his two brothers.

As the Epidemiology Section Chief, and later the Branch Chief of The Rickettsial and Zoonotic Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control, Childs studied how ticks and lice transmitted dangerous pathogens to humans. As such, he has been dispatched to trouble spots around the world, dressed in a biohazard “space” suit as protection against Ebola and Lassa fever, which he encountered in Zaire and Nigeria.

Returning to Norfolk in 2004, Childs enjoys being able to hunt and fish in nature’s bounty. As a Senior Scientist/Scholar at Yale University, he serves as a resource, mentoring students and lecturing. He is ever at the ready to consult on public health, as he did in Mongolia for the World Health Organization (WHO) this past summer.

From the time he started studying Zoonoses, once considered a backwater of science, he is now asked to comment on the virus on everyone’s mind, H1N1.

Childs explains that because H1N1 has an animal host it is impossible to consider eradication. However, he has confidence that the new H1N1 vaccine can limit the impact of the current pandemic. Still, unlike severe acute respiratory disease (SARS), which threatened the world a few years ago, influenza is different as people can spread this virus before there are signs of the disease. Dr. Childs need never worry about his job becoming obsolete. Unfortunately, there will always be new challenges.