Cruz, Patricia | back

Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health; Ph.D., University of Nevada, Reno.

Dr. Cruz is a microbiologist with 15 years of experience focused on enhanced methods for the detection of environmental fungi that pose a potential risk to human health. Key topics of her research are the development of primers and probes for use in quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR), and the efficacy of strategies for minimizing interference to QPCR. Dr. Cruz is a co-inventor of a patented method and real-time PCR primers and probes for the detection and quantitation of fungi of indoor air quality concern. She has also conducted research involving methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant microorganism. Dr. Cruz serves on the editorial board of the journal, Applied and Environmental Microbiology , and as a member of the UNLV Institutional Biosafety Committee.