Undergraduate Research Accepted for National Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Symposium

MELBOURNE, FLA. — Jessie Dyer, a Florida Tech senior majoring in molecular biology, was invited to present her research at the American Society of Tropical
Medicine and Hygiene 55th Annual Symposium in Atlanta, Ga., to be held this November. She is a resident of Merritt Island.
“It is quite an honor and unusual for an undergraduate to be invited to present research at a national scientific conference,” said Dr. Alan Leonard,
professor of biological sciences, Dyer’s Florida Tech advisor.
At the conference, Dyer will present her work on a technique for the detection of arthropod-borne flaviviruses, such as West Nile. Her research led to the
design of an assay to test for many different flaviviruses.
Dyer performed her research while taking courses in undergraduate research through the University of Florida and also as an employee of the Florida Medical
Entomology Laboratories, a branch of the University of Florida. The principal investigator of her project is Dr. Christopher Mores. He is a researcher on
Florida arboviruses, with emphasis on the ecology of arthropod-borne viruses, using both molecular biology to study virus population genetics and classic
virological techniques, to investigate patterns of disease transmission and maintenance.