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Friday, March 12, 2021 VOLUME LXXXVI ISSUE III SINCE 1935 www.oswegonian.com
SUNY supports student, staff researchers Grant funds research on how to better detect mutations of COVID-19
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Kylie Annable | The Oswegonian Student and staff researchers at SUNY Oswego use the SUNY grant to research COVID-19 and potential mutations of the virus.
Kaitlyn Goodwin Staff Writer news@oswegonian.com
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In December, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras announced awards of up to $10,000 to several SUNY campuses, including SUNY Oswego, to fund research on how to better detect COVID-19. In the Spring 2021 semester, Dr. Julia Koeppe and Dr. Kestas Bendinskas have been working with students, Angela Wu and Vikrant Jandev, to see how future mutations might impact the effectiveness of current COVID-19 testing methods. “We are specifically focusing on…mutations that may be occurring at the site where the primers would bind to the PCR-based COVID testing,” Koeppe said. “Because if there are mutations in this site…this could mean the testing would stop working so well because what we’re using to do the testing now doesn’t recognize the mutations. How different can it be before the testing no longer works?” Koeppe said that the group will later write a paper on how it developed the experiment in
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Spanish professor shares experiences in publications
the hopes that other universities will be able to use it. She also said that she hopes their work helps them anticipate future actions that might need to be taken to adjust testing. With news of new variations of the virus popping up around the world, it is no wonder that the team would dedicate their research to making sure the virus will not be able to go undetected and spread at a more rapid rate. Wu explains there are two parts to the research; the experimental and the background research. In the experimental portion, the team is focusing on predicting how mutations might affect testing efficiency, while in the research they are looking for any information that might help them in their process. “Viruses mutate, and when they mutate, the primers might not work as efficiently,” Wu said. The grant application emphasizes the value of the opportunity for students to participate in a live and constantly changing situation, making it a great opportunity for both the students currently developing the process, as well as the other students that will have the opportunity to learn about the re-
search later in the semester. Bendinskas elaborated on what the opportunity could mean for students. “We hope to prepare biochemistry majors to be successful when going to work for the biotech industry, [as] graduates of professional schools,” Bendinskas said. “The idea is that they should not be making mistakes like some CDC scientists made in early 2020 when they designed ineffective primers for the virus detection.” He then explained that the lab will help train other biochemistry majors, and he has hoped that by fall, the lab could be used on campuses across the nation. “Researching is different from class work…you have to think on your feet,” Wu said. “The professors might not even know what the next step should be. They don’t know what results we should be expecting most of the time.” Wu is excited to develop skills through this research that she might not have been able to develop in a classroom setting. Wu also highlighted that the research was about helping people too, and she hopes that their findings will soon contribute to the fight against COVID-19.
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Tomas Rodriguez Staff Writer news@oswegonian.com While the pandemic has shaped the way in which instruction is delivered, for one Spanish professor at SUNY Oswego, it has served as a pathway to inspiration for several publications. Visiting assistant professor Beatriz Salcedo-Strumpf has recently written two short testimonials related to the pandemic, having presented one of them before a literary jury in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. Salcedo-Strumpf had said that while the sudden transition to online learning presented some difficulties as it relates to teaching a foreign language remotely, she was determined to share those experiences through her writing and publications. “To be honest, it has been difficult to teach classes via Zoom,” Salcedo-Strumpf said. “First, because I have had to learn how to teach efficiently across these various plat-
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forms; secondly, students who take Spanish as a requirement must be motivated, but if they are interested in the class or if it is their specialty, students learn likewise via Zoom as they would in a face-to-face classroom environment.” Salcedo-Strumpf’s experience mirrors that of other instructors who, during the pandemic, had to reinvent the way in which they deliver instruction remotely and quickly adjust to the ever-changing circumstances. “At first, I thought we would be returning to campus in April,” SalcedoStrumpf said. “But with the alarming news of so many new infections and knowing that this deadly virus was attacking the elderly and the most vulnerable living with chronic illnesses, I assumed we were not going to teach in-person.” When it comes to teaching a foreign language remotely, she said it can be quite challenging for non-native students, especially when cameras are turned off and students’ microphones are muted.
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