fairfolio
Saved Projects

Evaluating the Impact of Temperature Increases and Ultraviolet Radiation on Naegleria fowleri Using the Model Organism Chaos carolinensis

ISEF · 2024 Cellular and Molecular Biology

Lu, Amy · Manatee High School

Is this your project?

Overview

With a mortality rate of 98%, primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a rare and deadly infection caused by Naegleria fowleri. Many scientists believe with climate change and rising temperatures, the habitat of Naegleria f. will expand, and infection rates will increase. However, another climate change factor is the deteriorating ozone layer, which increases ground-level UV radiation. With both variables present in the environment, this experiment tested how both factors can influence the population of amoebas. Instead of experimenting with Naegleria f., the project will examine the results of Chaos carolinensis. There are seven treatments in the experiment. Two groups will be tested with two increasing temperatures, and two other groups will be tested with two different exposure times to UV light. There will also be two additional groups that will be experimented with, both increasing temperatures and exposure times. The final group will be the control group to compare data. The results show that the higher temperatures increased population growth, and the higher exposure time of UV radiation displayed the smallest increase in population. The groups influenced by both variables showed a rise in growth similar to the control group, which was around 40-60%. Since UV radiation damages DNA, and reproduction still occurs, it is noted that there is a possibility the amoeba reproduced with DNA discrepancies. Although the results do not directly reflect the responses to Naegleria fowleri, there is an assumption that there may be a trend when applying these variables to N. fowleri. Knowing this will allow scientists to determine what we must focus on when combating pathogenic organisms impacted by climate change.

Working on something like this? See what's been done and what's still open.

Competition history

  • ISEF 2024 Cellular and Molecular Biology · Entry CELL021 · Los Angeles, California, United States Affiliated fair in FL, United States of America

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Report a problem

Source: Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google