Paul and the Mosquitos
From the authors of Paul Has Measles and Paul Stays Home comes Paul and the Mosquitos, an illustrated book for children about mosquito-borne diseases.
Basic virology
T cells will save us from COVID-19, part 3
In the two previous installments (one, two) of what has now become my praise of T cells, I explained that the SARS-CoV-2 protein sequences recognized by T cells do not change, likely explaining why vaccines prevent serious disease and death caused by any variant. Today I will explain that virus-specific T cells appear a week …
A whale of a virus story
The ancestors of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) moved from land to the sea over 50 million years ago. Many viruses infect cetaceans, but how they evolved during the shift from land to sea is unknown. Fossilized retroviral genomes integrated into cetacean DNA provide insight into this question. The retroviral reproduction cycle involves the conversion …
Evolution of a bacterial protein into a virus-like, RNA binding capsid
Starting with a bacterial protein, directed evolution in the laboratory has been used to produce a virus-like capsid that binds and protects RNA. This finding has implications for the origins of viruses. One view of the evolution of life is that viruses were present even before the first cells in the form of self-replicating molecules. …
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Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine-Induced Antibody Immunity
It is slowly becoming clear that the immunity induced by SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is of overall better quality than that induced by COVID-19.
The remarkable diversity of bat coronaviruses
All human viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, arose from spillovers from other animals. Results of a recent study of bat samples collected in a small region of Yunnan Province, China revealed additional close relatives of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV. After the identification of SARS-CoV-2 in early 2020, wildlife sampling and retrospective genome sequencing revealed highly related viruses in …