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.
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. …
Evolution of a bacterial protein into a virus-like, RNA binding capsid Read More »
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 …
Holiday travel explains spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant
The emergence and spread throughout Europe of a SARS-CoV-2 variant, 20E (EU1) in the summer of 2020 illustrates how a virus may become dominant not by increased transmissibility but through travel and lack of effective containment and screening. The SARS-CoV-2 variant 20E (EU1) emerged in Spain in the summer of 2020 and spread to multiple …
Holiday travel explains spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant Read More »