UF researcher named to officer’s post in international mycoplasma group

University of Florida scientist Maureen Davidson, Ph.D., has been elected secretary-general of the International Organization for Mycoplasmology.

A clinical associate professor of pathobiology at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, Davidson has been actively involved in the organization since 1978. Her duties will include maintaining correspondence on behalf of the organization, issuing newsletters and a handbook, and preparing minutes of board meetings.

The organization promotes international cooperative studies of mycoplasmas and mycoplasmal diseases. Mycoplasmas are the smallest free-living organisms and cause respiratory diseases in many animal species and humans. They also are associated with urogenital diseases and infertility and can cause other serious diseases in many plant and insect species.

Davidson, whose research focuses in part on the interactions of Mycoplasma fermentans and simian immunodeficiency virus in a primate model of AIDS, has provided clinical microbiology support to the marine mammal medicine program at UF and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission/Marine Mammal Health institutes since 2001.

“Mycoplasmas are important because of their potential effects of infection on human and animal health, as well as their economic importance in many areas of agriculture,” Davidson said. “In addition, their very small genome is interesting to scientists because it is believed to possess the minimal set of genes necessary for life.”

Davidson also recently served as chairwoman of the American Society for Microbiology’s mycoplasmology division. Currently, she is a member of the Subcommittee on Methods of Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Human Mycoplasma that recently was formed by the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards.