With the CoVid-19 pandemic, the medical field is pursuing new avenues to fight viral infections. To study their behavior and how to best combat them, many cell-based trials must be conducted before human trials can be implemented. As the ongoing pandemic has shown, shortages affect all aspects of day-to-day life, including medical research that is critical in the fight against CoVid. This project aims to infect a non-mammalian cell with a mammalian virus. The project's success would open many doors in medical research allowing researchers to simulate the effects of a virus on people without having to endanger human test subjects. The project explores the life cycle and means of infection of a specific virus provided by Robust Product Development. Robust Product Development also provided genetically modified yeast cells as the potential host for the virus. This project relies on theoretical technology; bacteria and other non-mammalian cells can be genetically modified to present virus-specific receptor proteins. Once the genetically modified cells are exposed to this virus, the genetically modified bacteria can be infected (can be the host) of this virus. Although the theory is valid, we have been tasked with generating proof-of-principle.

Our team collaborated with Biomedical Engineering 3 on this project.