Wednesday 6 July 2016

Student in Berlin II


Guten Tag!
These past few weeks at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin have been fantastic, and we have had some great results so far. We have been able to characterize the Mustelid herpesviruses in different badger populations as intended, and have now turned our focus to cytomegaloviruses (CMV) found in Gorillas. 
We have been using PCR to analyze gorilla samples to detect the presence of CMV, followed by next generation sequencing to look at the variants of the virus in different gorilla populations. Bioinformatics software packages can be complicated to get used to, but I think they are valuable tools for anyone interested in post-graduate research; if you get the chance to explore these during your 3rd year project, I would definitely recommend it. 

Kati 


Above: Gorilla samples positive for CMV 

(You can read Kati's first blog from Berlin posted on June 13th.)