Rumi Habib is a senior who is a Biology and Philosophy double major. He was awarded a Fall 2018 Independent Grant which he used to conduct research on the Zika Virus under Dr. Ioanna Skountzou. Although it was first discovered in 1947, the Zika virus didn’t enter the headlines until 2015. During the 2015-2016 epidemic, a wave of infants born with microcephaly , a neurodevelopmental condition that causes babies to have smaller than normal heads, resulted in the World Health Organization declaring the outbreak an international public health emergency. Viruses in the same family as the Zika virus include dengue, West Nile, and yellow fever. However, during the epidemic it emerged that Zika fever, even though milder than the diseases caused by its relatives, has some very unusual features. With microcephaly being the major one, it also emerged that Zika could be sexually transmitted, can infect the eye, can cause thrombocytopenia (low platelet levels), and in extrem...