The end of 2016 saw the addition of two 4th year M degree students to the project; Vanessa Kienmoser and John Maloney. Both Vanessa and John will be involved in active research on the project as part of their final year project working closely with Dr Kata Farkas at Bangor University.
During her time on the Viraqua project Vanessa will be taking part in both lab and fieldwork, her research project will focus on the surveillance of enteric viruses in sediment and shellfish from the Conwy estuary and the quantification of viral assemblages and optimal extraction method via RT-qPCR.
Johns’ research project is lab based, and involves tangential flow filtration and qPCR to determine the levels of certain enteric viruses in wastewater samples collected from Ganol, Llanrwst and Betws-y-coed.