News 2017-06-29: Visit to Ghana - June 2017

Perot Saelao from the Huaijun Zhou lab at UC Davis visited Dr. Boniface Kayang and the Ghana research team in order to help improve and troubleshoot the quantitation of the Newcastle disease virus through qPCR. On his arrival, Perot reviewed procedures done by the Ghana students and research team and was able to assist in the recovery of over 300 data points through reevaluation and troubleshooting. Despite the local holiday in Ghana, the team worked to establish working standards that were then validated on site and used to quantify the viral titer of 864 samples across two trials. Perot also helped in the design of a more optimized workflow to maximize the amount of data generated, in addition to limiting the extent small errors can have in disqualifying results. Perot also resupplied several critical reagents that were needed to continue sample processing. Under supervision, Ghana student Princess was consistently successful in her qPCR methods, and appears to be able to continue to generate data that will help to quantify the viral titers successfully.