‘CCU Disease Hunters’ detect local animal rescue for heartworm after breakthrough

CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — A group of Coastal Carolina University students have had a medical breakthrough in trying to prevent local dogs from getting heartworm.

Three students are part of the “CCU Disease Hunters,” focusing on preventing, inhibiting, and detecting diseases in our area. Last year, the students developed a procedure to collect mosquitos and detect them for heartworm.

To further develop their new technique, the students partnered with All4Paws Animal Rescue to help ensure that outdoor dogs are safe from the disease. Emma Weissmeier is a junior biochemistry major at CCU and has been on this team since fall 2022.

“We were able to test all these mosquitos separately, by sight, so this way we could screen for them,” she said.

Weissmeier is now the project leader.

“The idea came from Dr. Richardson’s dog being infected with heartworm and seeing how much of an impact it had in our community,” she said. “So, we started looking into it, we wanted to find something that we could test in our local area and when looking into heartworm we found that it spread only through mosquitos.”

According to the American Heartworm Society, South Carolina is ranked the third-highest state for heartworm incidents, with 5.7% of all dogs tested having heartworm.

Weissmeier said that once they detected heartworm in positive blood samples, they determined the best way to collect mosquitos was through a CDC light trap.

“We started doing that with our partnership with All4Paws in Pawleys Island and we were able to screen that community and found that it was completely negative for heartworm,” she said.

She said they learned they could test up to 10 mosquitos at once without any issues of too much DNA being present. Weissmeier and two classmates, Lucy Schneider and Ava Hurley, collected and tested about 30 mosquitos.

She said they set up a total of eight traps at the animal rescue. Two were set up on the side of the building and six toward the center of the site.

Hurley said she has a passion for working in the lab and wants to be a valuable resource for everyone in the community.

“In addition to the heartworm, that we were detecting in the area, they also asked us to detect hookworm species in the area,” Hurley said.

Professor Dr. Paul Richardson said their work here is far from being done. The group will continue collecting mosquitos and testing soil samples for hookworm disease come springtime.

* * *

Jackie LiBrizzi is a multimedia journalist at News13. Jackie is originally from Hamilton, New Jersey, and was raised in Piedmont, South Carolina. Jackie joined the News13 team in June 2023 after she graduated as a student-athlete from the University of South Carolina in May 2023. Follow Jackie on X, formerly Twitter, Facebook , or Instagram , and read more of her work he r e .

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW.