Scientists are renting Sunny Griffin’s fingernails. University of
Georgia food scientists are studying ways to clean under them in
research that could prompt new state regulations.

“I just find it interesting,” Griffin said as a technician
measured the length of her fingernails.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, the 19-year-old packs her artificial
fingernails with bacteria, such as E. coli placed on ground
beef.

“It’s kind of gross,” Griffin said.

Gross Chain of Events

The scientists undertook the study because of a gross chain of
events. A sick bakery worker with artificial fingernails went to
the bathroom at work, but didn’t adequately wash her hands before
icing a cake. Later, about 200 people, mostly children, got sick
from eating the cake and its contaminated icing.

“That could have been prevented,” said Chia-Min Lin, a research
coordinator at the UGA Center for Food Safety and Quality
Enhancement in Griffin, Ga.

Georgia public health officials asked the UGA researchers to find
the most effective way to clean fingernails, particularly
artificial nails.

“Theoretically, they harbor a lot of microorganisms, and they are
very hard to clean out,” Lin said.

Sunny and 11 other people will help scientists find if water
alone, regular hand soap, antibacterial soap, alcohol gel or nail
brushing will kill the most germs. The participants get $20 each
time they participate in the experiment.

Early Results

Early results show that brushing with regular soap cleans the
artificial nails best. For short nails, antibacterial soap
appears to kill the most germs.

After an hour of intense soaking, brushing and washing, Sunny
Griffin gets to call it quits, until later in the week when she
lets science borrow her fingernails again.

The research team is now focusing its work on killing viruses
that could grow under the nails.

Then, all the research findings will go to state health
officials. Depending on their analysis, Georgia could have new
regulations that deal specifically with cleaning artificial
fingernails.