Dr. Omar Bagasra, a biology professor at Claflin University and director of the South Carolina Center for Biotechnology, led a group of faculty and graduate student researchers in the investigation of the mechanisms by which the Zika virus causes various neurological diseases.
Zika virus is primarily spread to people through the bite of some Aedes mosquitoes. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded the virus causes microcephaly -- a rare neurological condition in which an infant’s head is significantly smaller than the heads of other typical children of the same age and sex. Cases of babies born with small head size in the Zika virus-infected areas of Brazil created fear at a global scale.