MARQUETTE, Mich.—Two lectures on the science of emerging diseases will be offered at Northern Michigan University on Thursday, Dec. 2, and Friday, Dec. 3. Both will begin at 10 a.m. in the West Science Building’s Mead Auditorium. They are free and open to the public.

            Eva Harris, professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, Berkley, will present “Dengue Fever: Breaking Epidemic Cycles” and “The Virus Hunter’s Toolkit” on Thursday. Harris will talk about dengue fever, a rapidly emerging viral disease that has been spreading throughout Central America and is now being detected in the United States. She will describe how she uses cutting-edge molecular biology, as well as community-based fieldwork, to study and fight the virus.  

                Joe DeRisi from the University of California, San Francisco, will talk about the diversity of viruses and the development of ViroChips, DNA microarrays that can be used to detect and classify new viruses associated with various diseases including human severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. He will describe how ViroChip technology has helped identify a new virus infecting patients in Nicaragua that have been screened for dengue fever.

            These events are part of the 2010 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Holiday Lectures on Science and sponsored by the NMU chapter of Sigma Xi.