{"id":86827,"date":"2020-04-27T11:08:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T15:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=86827"},"modified":"2020-04-27T11:08:22","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T15:08:22","slug":"wright-state-microbiology-alum-mark-espy-helps-develop-test-for-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/04\/27\/wright-state-microbiology-alum-mark-espy-helps-develop-test-for-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Wright State microbiology alum Mark Espy helps develop test for coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mark Espy ’81<\/p><\/div>\n

Wright State University microbiology<\/a> alumnus Mark Espy, a clinical researcher at the Mayo Clinic, helped develop a test to detect the presence of coronavirus in humans.<\/p>\n

The clinical virology laboratory at the world-renowned institute produces about 1,000 tests a day. The tests give results in about 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Headquartered in Rochester, Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic is one of the largest not\u2010for\u2010profit, academic health systems in the nation. With a focus on caring for patients with serious, complex illnesses, the clinic operates in five states and cares for more than 1 million people a year.<\/p>\n

For many years, Espy has done molecular and PCR testing at Mayo. He and his colleagues were instrumental in developing real-time PCR for use in the clinical laboratory. PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, is a method used widely in molecular biology to make up to billions of copies of a specific DNA sample rapidly, enabling scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a large enough amount to study in detail.<\/p>\n

Because of the experience Espy had gained from years of laboratory analyses, he was able to take the published genetic sequence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and develop probes to detect it using PCR.<\/p>\n

Espy said it was a difficult process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program picked out what it believes are good sequences to use based on the parameters I have set. I then look at the chosen sequences and \u2014 based on my experience and intuition \u2014 I pick what I think are the best ones,\u201d he said. \u201cThe sequences are then made to be ready for testing. The hard part was determining how well the sequences worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espy was able to find a patient who tested positive for COVID-19, enabling his team to determine the best primer\/probes combinations to the chosen gene targets of the virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom there, we were able to do all of the necessary testing to validate the assays, so that they could be used clinically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Previously, Espy developed a test to detect H1NI, the most common cause of human influenza in 2009 and associated with the 1918 outbreak known as the Spanish flu.<\/p>\n

Espy grew up in Dayton, graduating from Wayne High School in 1975. In 1979, he earned his bachelor\u2019s degree at Otterbein College, where he was inspired by a lecture from a microbiology professor from Wright State.<\/p>\n

Espy graduated from Wright State with a master\u2019s degree in microbiology<\/a> in 1981 and for the following three years worked on his Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Louisville.<\/p>\n

In 1985, Espy interviewed for a job at the Mayo Clinic, which was looking for a developmental technologist to conduct research in clinical virology.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayo was and is an impressive institute and if I was lucky enough to be hired I felt I would be involved with some interesting work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Espy was indeed hired and began what has been a 35-year career at Mayo. He is currently one of the clinic\u2019s developmental technologist coordinators.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting my master\u2019s degree at Wright State University was an incredible experience,\u201d he said. \u201cThe experience taught me a lot and set me on the path of the career I have today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Espy, who earned a master\u2019s degree in microbiology from Wright State, is a clinical researcher at the Mayo Clinic. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":86835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,733,4839,2060,725,715,746],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-coronavirus","category-graduate","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news","category-science-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86827"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86851,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86827\/revisions\/86851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}