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Current Researchers
Amanda dos Santos
Maria Lockwood
The goal of this project is to understand which viruses are present in the saliva of college students. We have initially focused on the herpesviruses.
Agarose gel image of restriction digests of herpesvirus PCR products.
Background
Humans are hosts to eight viruses in the Herpesviridae. Most are associated with rashes or other skin lesions and can be transmitted through bodily fluids or contact with the lesions. In my Virology course, we initiated a lab project to test for herpesviruses in the saliva of college students. We extracted DNA from saliva, amplified herpesviruses by PCR, and identified them by restriction digests. We found 53.3% of samples positive for human herpesvirus 7, 15.3% positive for Epstein-Barr virus, and 10.7% were positive for both. None of the other six viruses were found.
Header Photo Credit: CDC/ E. L. Palmer - This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #2171.
Outputs from this project
Coming soon
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