Hi everyone, my name is Gal Yovel, and I am a junior studying biology with a minor in chemistry, a certificate in conceptual foundation of medicine, and a distinction in sustainability. On campus, I am an ambassador of the Pitt Alumni Association through the Blue and Gold Society and the President of Food Recovery Heroes, an organization that fights food waste and food insecurity around the Pittsburgh area. After finishing my undergraduate studies, I plan to go to medical school, but I am still determining if I want to continue to do research and do an MD/Ph.D. program or just an MD program. Through the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship, I hope to gain more experience in independent research and better understand what goes into a research project and if research is something that I am passionate about. Currently, I conduct research in the Freeman Lab under pediatric infectious disease physician-scientist Dr. Megan Freeman at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. I originally started doing research with Dr. Freeman over the summer through the Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP). Since the summer, I have gained much experience in research techniques and learned a lot about Human Parechovuirs, the virus I study.

Human parechovirus (hPeV) is a common non-enveloped, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA virus. HPeV is transmitted through fecal-oral and respiratory routes, leading to near-universal infection by the age of 5. Most children between 6 months to 5 years at the time of infection are asymptomatic or experience mild symptoms such as a fever or rash. However, the clinical presentation of hPeV is more severe in children three months or younger, leading to neonatal sepsis, meningoencephalitis, and/or death. Current understanding of the pathogens and treatment of hPeV is limited. Presently, 19 genotypes of the virus are known, with hPeV type 3 (hPeV3) known to lead to the most severe disease. My project for the semester, “Genotyping Human Parechovirus in the 2022 Pittsburgh Season,” aims to understand what genotypes of human parechovirus were circulating in the Pittsburgh area during the spring-autumn of 2022. By understanding what genotypes were present, we can better understand the virus’s circulation pattern. Additionally, learning which genotypes lead to more severe diseases improves our knowledge of the clinical presentation of hPeV. Overall, genotyping hPeV will improve the overall understanding of the virus and is crucial to improving the treatment of hPeV. I am very excited to work on my project this semester and uncover the genotypes that existed in Pittsburgh, and I hope my research helps improve treatments for infants who are infected with hPeV.

This is a picture of Dr. Freeman and I during the poster presentation at the SRIP poster session.