Ebolavirus Research Paper
Essays should be a minimum of 1500 words without exceeding 2500 words. The focus of the presentation should be on microbiology. Apply the concepts and vocabulary you learn in class to your specific microbe. The majority of the paper should focus on how the microbe lives, how it infects the host, and how it is able to cause disease – which necessarily means that you must explain, in detail, your pathogen’s specific molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity! How is the microorganism transmitted to the host? What is the preferred portal of entry? How does the pathogen set up the initial infection? What conditions are required for growth of the microbe? How does the disease progress? How does the pathogen penetrate or evade the host defenses, and how does it damage host cells? What symptoms and signs are usually present in the host? What treatments are effective against the microbe (if you list a drug as a potential treatment, describe its molecular mechanism of action, if known)? How might the disease be prevented? Try to focus on the microbiology of the pathogen and its characteristics emphasizing the molecular mechanisms that are involved as much as possible.
Specific Paper Guidelines
Your paper should focus on the many important and famous aspects of your microbe, including (as appropriate) the following:
Modern discovery
Description
Pathogenesis
Virulence factors – molecular mechanisms or putative* molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity (read Chapter 15, Microbial Mechanisms of Pathogenicity, in your lecture textbook, for more information).
Treatment with emphasis upon the molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity
Epidemiology
Prevention
*The word putative is used to describe an entity or a concept that is based on what is generally accepted or inferred even without a direct proof of it.
