Recipients
Oksana Akhova
Supervisor(s):
Vikram Misra
Cold sores recur, usually when a person is stressed in some way (sunburned, take a test, get ill, etc.). The herpes simplex virus, which creates cold sores, hides out in nerve cells and has a mechanism for sensing when there is stress. In this project, Drs. Akhova and Misra will explore how the virus senses when the nervous system is stressed. They’ve identified two human genes that seem to turn the herpes simplex virus on and off. If they can learn more about how this works, it may tell them more about how the nervous system deals with stress in general, which could beneficially affect not only sufferers of herpes simplex, but other nervous system diseases in which neurons die because they are unable to withstand the stress of inflammation, virus infection, lack of oxygen etc.
