Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Zaharoff, David

Committee Member/Reader

Zaharoff, David

Committee Member/Second Reader

Muldoon, Timothy

Committee Member/Third Reader

Balachandran, Kartik

Abstract

There is no broad-based antiviral medication available today; there are specific antivirals, for example, the antiretroviral for HIV. However, these specific antivirals are not available in each country and can be problematic for specific patients. Chitosan is proposed as a possible broad-based antiviral, which has already demonstrated antibacterial properties, antiviral properties in plants, is used for wound healing and as a hydrogel among other medical applications. The methods used are transfection of NIH-3T3 cells with GFP-adenovirus with 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1% chitosan added to virus prior to transfection. Fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry data has validated that the use of 0.1% chitosan added to virus before transfection reduced the percentage of fluorescence of gfp from 72% to 1.9%, suggesting a 70% percentage difference of transfection. Based on these findings, it is proposed that chitosan could be a broad-based antiviral medication. Future directions include the adding chitosan after transfection, use of other viruses, and employing studies in animal models to test in-vivo.

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