Pandemics – COVID-19 Science Projects (15 results)

Even during a global pandemic like COVID-19, there are differences in how the epidemic unfolds within communities. Some communities see early, large waves of infected individuals, while others see smaller numbers of infections over a longer period of time, and others may not appear to have an epidemic at all. Could R₀ (pronounced R naught), account for some of this variation? R₀, the basic reproduction number of a disease, quantifies how many people, on average, an infected… Read more

Over time, viruses evolve. Their evolution is influenced by both neutral drift, the natural mutation rate of the virus, and selective pressure from the hosts' immune systems. Scientists study a virus's genomic evolution—the changes at the nucleotide and amino acid level—to better understand how the virus is spreading and the clinical implications. You can use public databases and tools to do the same type of tracking and analysis of COVID-19 that scientists around the world do. … Read more

Stopping a viral outbreak like COVID-19 takes more than luck, it takes public health tools. Vaccines are considered to be one of the best public health tools, which is why there is often a rush to develop good vaccines for newly discovered viruses, particularly those that have the potential to infect lots of people. Recent examples include COVID-19, Zika virus, and Ebola. If enough people are vaccinated, an effective vaccine can help stop outbreaks or even eradicate (completely get rid of) a… Read more

"Flu season" is something we deal with every winter. Cyclical or seasonal outbreaks of an infectious disease can occur for a variety of reasons, such as seasonal changes in host behavior (for example, more people staying indoors), the seasonal abundance of disease carriers (for example, mosquitos), and many others. Another factor that can play a role in cyclical outbreaks occurs when the natural immunity to a disease has a short duration. This enables each individual in the population to… Read more

Unlocking the three-dimensional structure of a protein is crucial to help scientists understand how it functions in our bodies and how it can cause devastating diseases if it becomes disrupted or interacts in the wrong way. However, figuring out the structure of a protein in three-dimensional space can be very challenging. Proteins are the functional units of our cells, and every protein is made up of a long chain of amino acids. Amino acids come in different shapes and sizes, and they have… Read more