Virginia Davis

The Dominican Republic and Haiti are located on the same island of Hispaniola and share flora, resulting in overlap of plants growing in both countries. As people from Hispaniola migrate to the US, they bring cultural knowledge and traditional medical practices with them. One of these medical practices in Haiti involves topical application of Mexican Prickly Poppy (Argemone mexicana) to the vagina to treat vaginal infections. In this project, Virginia will investigate the antibacterial properties of this plant on vaginal pathogenic and beneficial bacteria and compare the bioactivity on bacteria of store-bought fresh and dried samples.