Authors:

Ryan Yin

Date Created:

Not specified

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About Paper:

Chlorine-tolerant and biofilm-related pathogens, an emergent type of waterborne disease, have become a growing issue for the American healthcare system. The C.D.C. estimates about 7.2 million individuals get sick annually, and financial strain totals over 3 billion dollars in direct healthcare costs. Of these new types of diseases, the most immediately concerning are diseases with the highest mortality rates. My research at the Luo Lab focuses on Legionnaires disease, which accounts for about 15% of deaths in this emergent class of pathogen but only consists of less than 1% of reported cases at emergency departments. Our research aims to discover a phage-related treatment for Legionnaires disease. The methodology in our approach is simple and robust: isolation, exposure, and analysis. Our first goal is to isolate to find a phage that might kill the legionella bacterium. We have searched the places most likely to have the perfect conditions for bacterial propagation: warm and stagnant waters. Once we isolate the phages, we then expose the phages to a prepared bacterium solution. To analyze whether any change has happened, we first quantitatively analyze the appearance of the bacterial solution. If the solution expresses a visual change, we will further analyze the phage contents inside. Although we do not have any conclusive results, a wider socially contracted approach in gathering samples can help us widen our reach and provide more samples to test for anti-legionella phages.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Ryan Yin