Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My topic is the effects of ginger extract on rhinovirus activity

So i was wondering why I could not find any research that has been already done on this since I thought ginger was a widely used self treatment for the cold. Is it because it has already been proven that ginger has no effect?

Also I was having difficulty in trying to find a way to find out if the ginger extract actually inhibit rhinovirus activity other than infecting actual human cells in culture. As a high school student I don't think I would be able to buy human cells.... so is there any other way to test the effectiveness of the ginger extract on rhinovirus?

Thanks a bunch!
Tony

Hi Tony,

This is definitely a very interesting topic. I'm sure research has been done, though I haven't been able to find any scientific papers on it yet, though I'll keep looking for your benefit. Wikipedia, though of course not 100% accurate, does provide a pretty solid background on it though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger#Medicinal_use. At least, it is not clear exactly what the ginger does: does it actually affect the virus, or does it merely deal with the symptoms? At any rate, as a molecular bio major (and an aspiring virologist), these kinds of questions get me somewhat (in a rather unfortunately nerdy way) excited.

The difficulty that you mention is a very complex one. Yes, as a high school student, it is unlikely that your high school has the necessary equipment to qualify to receive active rhinovirus (typically, at least biosafety level 2 would be required, this is generally only present at university labs and other research facilities). My first thought is that, if you want to pursue this exact method of testing the effect of ginger on rhinovirus, you would have to be in a university lab. So, if you are motivated to do that (and by all means consider it! University labs are rather chill and good experiences), feel free to email professors at nearby universities and research facilities with a detailed research proposal and request to use their lab. Hopefully, a lab will be nice enough to take you on.

Now, a second difficulty that I also forsee is the effect of the immune system. Say the ginger actually affects some aspect of the immune system, allowing it to deal better with rhinovirus. So, if you proceed with the above route of joining a lab, a negative result (meaning that the rhinovirus is not inhibited by the ginger) may not tell you too much since it does not tell you how the ginger is / isn't affecting the immune system. However, if you do get to a lab, one possible further route would be working with mice. This has its own difficulties since only mammals normally are infected with rhinovirus. However, semi-recent advances have allowed researchers to use mice (this is quite cool: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v14/n2/abs/nm1713.html and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 77668.html; the first describes a rare strain of rhinovirus, transgenic mice, and induced exacerbation of the airways, and the second describes just more of the transgenic mice). At any rate, though this is difficult, most labs (if they are very interested, and many labs are) can do this kind of research.

Ok, so on to joining a lab. Just some tips. Like I stated earlier, email professors with a specific, clearly defined research proposal (you don't obviously need the details of each method, but keep it clear what you aim to do and via what methods). Choose to email professors who are closely related to your topic, so generally virologists and the like.

Cheers! Hope this helps,
Aaron Lin

Oops, one thing that I forgot (I was tired last night, sorry).

Because it is rather ambitious to be working with viruses that infect humans, there are two (or more) possible routes you have if you would rather slightly modify your topic. Most high school labs generally have BSL-1 (biosafety level 1) equipment, meaning you can work with anything that isn't a risk factor to humans or the environment (eg, in a worst case scenario, if somehow whatever you were working with managed to get stolen or escaped or something, would this be harmful to anybody or anything?). It also includes non-pathogenic strains of bacteria which can include E. coli and S. Epidermis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level).

So, because of this, last year (yes, I was in high school also), I was able to actually use bacteriophages (more specifically cyanophages, a virus that infects a particular type of cyanobacteria) as well as cyanobacteria for my research project because neither was a significant risk factor either to humans or to the environment. The project didn't turn out so well BUT nevertheless, you could modify your project to something along the lines of 'the effects of ginger extract on <insert some harmless bacteria/virus/fungus/etc>. In fact, you don't really have to use ginger, you can really choose whatever you like. This route is probably simpler than the 'working in a university lab one,' so if you do choose this route, I can give you more details/help if you require it (eg on radius of inhibition tests, etc).

Aaron