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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Evolution Of Bordetella Pertussis Genome May Play A Role In The Increased Rate Of Whooping Cough Cases In The United States, Kevin Loftus May 2018

Evolution Of Bordetella Pertussis Genome May Play A Role In The Increased Rate Of Whooping Cough Cases In The United States, Kevin Loftus

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Bordetella pertussis is the bacterium responsible for pertussis, a disease commonly referred to as whooping cough. Recently, pertussis has made a resurgence in the U.S. despite high-vaccination coverage. Possible causes of the increased number of pertussis cases include genetic evolution of B. pertussis, increased awareness of the disease, better laboratory diagnostics, and the switch from a whole-cellular (wP) vaccine to an acellular vaccine (aP) in the 1990s. Fortunately, just as B. pertussis is evolving, so is the arsenal of technologies used to understand and combat this pathogenic bacterium. Whole genome sequencing is one technology that helps researchers better understand …


A Cure For Salmonella: Engaging Students In Pathogen Microbiology And Bioinformatics, Sophie Jurgensen Jan 2018

A Cure For Salmonella: Engaging Students In Pathogen Microbiology And Bioinformatics, Sophie Jurgensen

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Advances in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology have generated a vast amount of publicly available genomic data, creating a need for students with training in computational analysis. This laboratory lesson is a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) focusing on environmental Salmonella, a common foodborne pathogen that is of great interest to public health laboratories but is relatively less virulent than most other such pathogens. As discovery is a central tenet of CUREs, students isolate novel Salmonella enterica and related strains from stream sediment, poultry litter, or other sources in the first half of the lesson (Module 1). They also …