Dr. Gael Kurath's interests involve basic research into the epidemiology and evolution of RNA viruses, including their molecular biology, genetic diversity, host specificity, fitness, and transmission patterns. Her team's research model is rhabdovirus pathogens of salmonid fish, using extensive field data on virus occurrence and disease impacts, in vivo wet-laboratory infection studies, and molecular biological studies of viral genomic diversity. The field epidemiology has identified major virus emergence and displacement events associated with host jumps, and evolution of a generalist virus from a specialist ancestor. Major current efforts include discerning the drivers of these events, developing a landscape scale model of virus transmission throughout the Pacific Northwest, and defining the functional basis of specialism versus generalism for an RNA virus. The ability to test field hypotheses by conducting in vivo infection studies in a vertebrate host makes this system relevant to the basic function of RNA viruses, and contributes to the One Health concept that unites human and veterinary medicine and addresses the connections between human health and the environment.