Dr Jessica Kevill

Postdoctoral Research Officer

Research

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Virology, at the School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University. I gained my Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the University of Salford, Manchester in 2018. My research focused on the role of resistance to Deformed wing virus (DWV) in European honey bees. During my Ph.D., I designed molecular methods for viral detection and applied these to establish a connection between DWV and honey bee winter survivorship in the UK and USA. After my Ph.D., I completed a two-year postdoctoral research position at the University of Minnesota, USA. Here, I developed methods for the detection of viruses infecting honey bees and pigs, using state-of-the-art technologies such as Next Generation Sequencing.

At the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, I joined Bangor University as a Postdoctoral researcher in the SARS-CoV-2 surveillance lab. During this time, I have focused my research on method development for the concentration and recovery of SARS-CoV-2 and other human-derived viruses from wastewater samples. In addition, I have developed molecular techniques for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and other human-derived viruses in wastewater, using NGS and various PCR platforms (qPCR and digital droplet PCR).

My current research focuses on the effects of a changing climate on human-derived viruses found in coastal and estuarine environments. I am also interested in new molecular technologies and how these can be applied to environmental samples to assess viral prevelence, abundance and diversity. 

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