WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University is at the forefront of Indiana’s fight against the spread of COVID-19 variants and remains uniquely able to assist…
Purdue researchers use malaria expertise to track COVID-19 in Indiana
Scientists have been using genetics to track diseases for decades. Now, a team at Purdue University that typically tracks malaria spread in Southern and Central Africa is using its expertise to track COVID-19 in Indiana.
Giovanna Carpi s lab studies the genomics of infectious diseases to better understand how they spread. An assistant professor of biological sciences, she focuses her research primarily on malaria. With the onset of the pandemic, her lab pivoted to study the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, including tracking variants.
Tracking variants of diseases - whether they are bacterial like tuberculosis, viral like SARS-CoV-2 or parasitic like malaria - helps scientists understand how they travel in a community, how they mutate and adapt, and how vaccines and other mitigation strategies are working.
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IMAGE: An assistant professor of biological sciences at Purdue University, Carpi uses her malaria expertise to track COVID-19 variants. view more
Credit: Purdue University photo/Rebecca McElhoe
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Scientists have been using genetics to track diseases for decades. Now, a team at Purdue University that typically tracks malaria spread in Southern and Central Africa is using its expertise to track COVID-19 in Indiana.
Giovanna Carpi s lab studies the genomics of infectious diseases to better understand how they spread. An assistant professor of biological sciences, she focuses her research primarily on malaria. With the onset of the pandemic, her lab pivoted to study the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, including tracking variants.
Purdue scientists use malaria expertise to track COVID-19 variants, inform policymakers on virus spread
Note to journalists: For a copy of the paper, please contact Brittany Steff, Purdue News Service, at bsteff@purdue.edu or 765-494-7833. Photos are available via Google Drive. Journalists visiting campus should follow visitor health guidelines.
Giovanna Carpi, assistant professor of biological sciences at Purdue University. (Purdue University photo/Rebecca McElhoe)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Scientists have been using genetics to track diseases for decades. Now, a team at Purdue University that typically tracks malaria spread in Southern and Central Africa is using its expertise to track COVID-19 in Indiana.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. – As the weather warms and the vaccine effort continues to expand, Tippecanoe County is seeing a decrease in something present since the arrival of the pandemic: testing for COVID-19.
The number of reported tests for COVID-19 in the county each day has fallen since the third wave of the virus surged.
On Friday, the Indiana State Department of Health’s dashboard tracking COVID-19 reported that a total of 108,401 tests have been given in Tippecanoe County since data collection began last March.
Tippecanoe County’s first recorded test was reported March 1, 2020, the only test that day. From there, numbers steadily grew, hitting a first peak Aug. 17 with 1,551 tests, a second peak with 3,404 tests given Nov. 24 and the third peak and current record with 3,869 tests given Jan. 18, 2021.