Hiroki KOYAMA
Research Topic
Construction of prediction models for the emergence of less-sensitive populations of enveloped viruses to disinfection
Research Abstract
Human society has experienced outbrakes of viral infectious disesaes as like ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2, which have a significant impact on human health and life. It is well known that virus populations have high genetic diversity and are composed of varied variants with different phenotypes. Mutations that are advantageous under environmental conditions are prevalent within a population by natural selection. Disinfection has been used to prevent viral infections, but shown to be one of the natural selection pressure on non-enveloped viruses. However, disinfection sensitivity of envelope viral populations have not been very well investigated. In this study, I’m investigating the mechanisms of sensitivity change of enveloped viruses to chlorine disinfection for constructing a model to predict the emergence of less-sensitive viral populations to disinfection.