Why bird flu doesn’t do well in humans
Influenza A viruses are a common concern among many animal species, including birds, horses, pigs, and humans and the effects can range from asymptomatic to severe respiratory injury leading to death. The low fidelity of the genome-replication machinery – together...
How do you go about making a vaccine? – I Part
How do you go about making a vaccine? We received this very pertinent question from a sci-fi author a few weeks ago, and thought it was worth a new short blog series! This month we cover the early R&D stages of vaccine discovery, while in the next blog, we’ll talk...
The making of dengue virus: NS4 & NS5
The non-structural proteins of dengue, although relatively small, have multiple assorted roles. In last month’s blog, we have seen how NS2 and NS3 each play multiple roles in virus propagation and host immunomodulation. This month we address NS4 and NS5, two...
Evolve or get zapped
In a 2017 Nature publication (Takata et al.), a team of virologists led by Professor Paul D. Bieniasz (The Rockefeller University) found that zinc-finger antiviral protein (ZAP) discriminates self from nonself (viral) RNAs based on their CG dinucleotide content. Now,...Page 10 of 29