Sarah Bensel
Research Mentor(s): Ke Zhang
Mentor Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
Authors: Sarah Bensel, Olivia Penrod, Nadwa Atwi, Vishagan Karthikeyan, Ke Zhang
Session: Session 7 (4:00pm – 4: 50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 26
Abstract
Respiratory infectious diseases are one of the most common issues in the field of public health due to their pervasive and potentially fatal nature. In order to mitigate that threat, understanding the persistence of viruses in indoor environments is crucial. This study aims to investigate the transmission risk of pathogenic viruses in indoor environments using the bacteriophage Phi6, a safe surrogate for enveloped pathogenic viruses (e.g., influenza viruses). We spiked Phi6 in human saliva, deposited on a glass surface, then incubated it in an environmental chamber that mimicked the humidity in indoor environments, which typically change across seasons. After recovering the Phi6 from the glass surface into a solution, we conducted plaque assay to measure the rate of decay. We found that Phi6 had a higher rate of decay at high relative humidities compared to low relative humidities. This indicates that the higher humidities had more of an effect on the phage’s viability, as the number of plaques decreased the longer the samples were exposed to the environment. These findings imply that environments with high humidities may experience lower viral transmission rates. Further research may be done to explore the effects of relative humidity on non-enveloped viruses.
