Viruses in the Environment

Human and animal viruses are a tremendous burden on our health and well-being. Environmental engineering and public health specialists therefore need to be able to detect viruses in complex environmental samples and understand how they are inactivated in natural and engineered system. Our research group works to improve virus detection and monitoring methods. We also seek a mechanistic description of virus fate in the environment and in systems designed to mitigate their spread. We are particularly interested in how differences in virus genomes and virus particle structures influence their susceptibility to inactivation.