O'Connor Laboratory
Research
In recent years, many viruses have
emerged in the human population. Viruses such as hantaviruses, SARS,
and avian influenza have made newspaper headlines. The emergence of
these new viruses has focused much attention on the monitoring of
viruses and their diseases. Even with all this focus, the
scientific community is unable to predict when and if a new virus will
emerge. The focus of my research is to employ the techniques of
molecular biology to probe for viruses in nature and to examine their
patterns of emergence. Detecting whether a virus has found a new
ecological niche, has infected new hosts, or is associated with a
specific disease provides valuable information for understanding and
preventing a disease. Specific research objectives include 1) isolating
and identifying unknown viruses and 2) following the patterns of
transmission of specific known viruses; both of these projects will use
lower vertebrate or invertebrate populations as models for human virus
emergence. Specific outcomes for the student researcher will be
obtaining proficiency in techniques of cell culture, molecular biology,
and virus propagation and gaining understanding of the factors causing
emergence of viral diseases.
