Victoriya Volkova

Victoriya VolkovaAssistant Professor

  • 2011-2014 – Research Associate (research faculty) in mathematical modeling, Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University
  • 2007-2011 – Post-doctoral Fellow in epidemiology, Centre for Infectious Diseases, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh
  • 2007 - Ph.D., Veterinary Medical Sciences minoring in Statistics, Mississippi State University
  • 1996 - DVM, Kharkov State Zooveterinary Institute, Ukraine

Research

Applying mathematical and laboratory methods to delineate drivers of antimicrobial resistance in food animal bacteria

Impact of antimicrobial treatment (drug pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics) on host's enteric microbiome

Epidemiology of bacterial genes

Epidemiology and mathematical modeling of animal infectious diseases

Our research is currently funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA-CVM), the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA), and the U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the NIH.

We assist the FDA-CVM in monitoring antimicrobial resistance in foodborne pathogens and indicator enteric bacteria as a part of the U.S. National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring Program (NARMS). We also develop analytical methods for epidemiological analyses of the distribution of bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in different host populations and study relationships between antimicrobial drug use and the AMR distribution. In the research direction funded by the NIGMS, we elucidate pharmacodynamics against nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica of two first-line treatment choices for serious human infections by these Salmonellae: antimicrobials ciprofloxacin (a fluoroquinolone) and ceftriaxone (a cephalosporin). Specifically, we elucidate the pharmacodynamics against Salmonella strains that have acquired reduced susceptibility or resistance to these drugs. This could enable us to re-design the treatment regimens and thus prolong the usable life-span of these antimicrobial drug classes, sustaining therapeutic options for human infections.

We investigate ecology of bacteriophages and develop animal-based models of bacteriophage therapies. In this research direction funded by the USDA NIFA, we focus on bacteriophage therapies against food-animal pathogens that cause acute diseases requiring antimicrobial drug treatments in the U.S. food-animal populations.

We develop mathematical models of possible outbreak dynamics of high-consequence foreign and emerging animal diseases, such foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), in the U.S. food-animal populations. We employ the developed models to craft candidate outbreak management strategies such as food-animal vaccination or depopulation, including strategies for field deployment of next-generation DIVA vaccines. This research has been funded by the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

We participate in the Center for Outcomes Research and Epidemiology (CORE)

Recent Publications

Cazer C., Volkova V. V., Gröhn Y. T. Expanding behavior pattern sensitivity analysis with model selection and survival analysis. BMC Veterinary Research 2018 14(1): 355 doi: 10.1186/s12917-018-1674-y

Cabezas A. H., Sanderson M. W., Jaberi-Douraki M., Volkova V. V. Clinical and infection dynamics of foot-and-mouth disease in beef feedlot cattle: an expert survey. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 2018 158: 160-168 doi: 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2018.08.007

Wen X., Gehring R., Riviere J. E., Lubbers B. V., Gaire T. N., Wyche B., Fox B., Quichocho V., Volkova V. V. Variation in fluoroquinolone pharmacodynamic parameter values among isolates of two bacterial pathogens of bovine respiratory disease. Scientific Reports 2018 8(1): 10553 doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28602-8

Shakeri H. and Volkova V. V., Wen X., Deters A., Cull C. Drouillard J., Müller C., Moradijamei B., Jaberi-Douraki M. Establishing statistical equivalence of data from different sampling approaches for assessment of bacterial phenotypic antimicrobial resistance. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2018 84(9): e02724-17 doi: 10.1128/AEM.02724-17

Cazer C., Ducrot L., Volkova V. V., Gröhn Y. T. Monte Carlo models suggest current chlortetracycline withdrawal periods would not control antimicrobial resistance dissemination from feedlot to slaughterhouse. Frontiers in Microbiology: Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy 2017 8: 1753 doi:10.3389/fmicb.2017.01753

Mazloom R., Jaberi- Douraki M., Comer J., Volkova V. V. Potential information loss due to categorization of MIC frequency distributions. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease 2017 15(1): 44-54 doi:10.1089/fpd.2017.2301

Gröhn Y. T., Carson C., Lanzas C., Pullum L., Stanhope M., Volkova V. V. A proposed analytic framework for determining the impact of an antimicrobial resistance intervention. Animal Health Research Reviews 2017 18(1):1-25 doi:10.1017/S1466252317000019

Volkova V. V., Cazer C., Gröhn Y. T. Models of antimicrobial pressure on enteric bacteria of the treated host populations. Epidemiology and Infection 2017 145(10): 2081-2094 doi:10.1017/S095026881700084X

Volkova V. V., DeMars Z. Short history of regulations and approved indications of antimicrobial drugs for food animals in the U.S. Journal of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2017 40(3): 211-217 doi:10.1111/jvp.12376

Wen X., Gehring R., Stallbaumer A., Riviere J. E., Volkova V. V. Limitations of MIC as sole metric of pharmacodynamic response across the range of antimicrobial susceptibilities within a single bacterial species. Scientific Reports 2016 6, article 37907 doi:10.1038/srep37907

Volkova V. V., KuKanich B., Riviere J. E. Exploring post-treatment reversion of antimicrobial resistance in enteric bacteria of food animals as a resistance mitigation strategy. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease 2016 13(11): 610-617 doi:10.1089/fpd.2016.2152

DeMars Z., Biswas S., Amachawadi R. G, Renter D. R., Volkova V. V. Antimicrobial susceptibility of enteric gram negative facultative anaerobe bacilli in aerobic versus anaerobic conditions. PLoS ONE 2016 11(5): e0155599 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155599

Birger R., Kouyos R. D., Cohen T., Griffiths E., Huijben S., Mina M., Volkova V. V., Grenfell B., Metcalf J. E.. The potential impact of coinfection on anti-microbial chemotherapy and drug resistance. Trends in Microbiology 2015 23(9): 537-544 doi:10.1016/j.tim.2015.05.002

Volkova V. V., Lu Z., Besser T., Gröhn Y. T. Modeling infection dynamics of bacteriophages in enteric Escherichia coli: estimating the contribution of transduction to antimicrobial gene spread. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2014 doi:10.1128/aem.00446-14

Cazer C. and Volkova V. V., Gröhn Y. T. Use of pharmacokinetic modeling to assess antimicrobial pressure on enterobacteria of beef cattle fed chlortetracycline for growth promotion, disease metaphylaxis or treatment. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease 2014 11(5): 403-411 doi:10.1089/fpd.2013.1677

Volkova V. V., Lu Z., Lanzas C., Scott H. M., Gröhn Y. T. Modelling dynamics of plasmid-gene mediated antimicrobial resistance in enteric bacteria using stochastic differential equations. Scientific Reports 2013 3, article 2463 doi:10.1038/srep02463

Volkova V. V., Lu Z., Lanzas C., Gröhn Y. T. Evaluating targets for control of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance in enteric commensals of beef cattle: a modeling approach. Epidemiology and Infection 2013 141(11): 2294-2312 doi:10.1017/S0950268812002993

Volkova V. V., Hubbard S.-A., Magee D., Byrd J. A., Bailey R. H., Wills R. W. Effects of broiler feed medications on Salmonella. Avian Diseases 2013 57(3): 640-644 doi:10.1637/10462-120512-Reg.1

Volkova V. V., Lanzas C., Lu Z., Gröhn Y. T. Mathematical model of plasmid-mediated resistance to ceftiofur in commensal enteric Escherichia coli of cattle. PLoS ONE 2012 7(5): e36738 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036738