Thursday, January 31, 2013

"Mount Sinai researchers discover how the flu virus tells time"


            The article, “Mount Sinai researchers discover how the flu virus tells time” talks about how long a flu virus takes to replicate itself, contaminate other cells and spread to other human beings. Dr. Benjamin tenOever, a Fishberg Professor of Microbiology at Mount Sinai, states that the discovery of the flu virus telling time can help scientists find a new antiviral drug that can make the viral clock not function properly. When a virus is in you it can’t stay in a cell too long or too short. If it doesn’t stay long enough in the cell, the virus is not strong enough, but if it stays too long, it gives the immune system time to attack it and kill it. Dr. TenOever predicts, that the virus must have something to help it budget its time, so it can steal specific resources before the immune system takes action. Dr. tenOever’s team and him wanted to see how long the virus will take on multiplying itself and moving on. The result was, it has about 8 hours to make more of itself and spread continuously before an antiviral alarm goes off in the cell. Dr. tenOever said the “virus needs 2 days of continuous activity to infect enough cells to permit spread to another human being.”  Timing is critical. He and his team’s research discovered the process of timing of the flu infection. “The virus slowly accumulates one particular protein that it needs to exit the cell and subsequently spread to other cells, and eventually other humans, just in time before the immune system is activated.”
            Have you gotten your flu vaccine?  After reading this article I felt extremely relieved because I have already got my flu vaccine. Every year it’s important everyone gets their vaccine but not everyone does. It has been in the news that there have been long lines for flu vaccines. This affects our community as a whole. The value in Dr. tenOever’s research is it could provide “a novel design platform for the flu vaccine.”
            Can it be true, can this new antiviral drug, they soon discover have different ingredients?” My Aunt Cristina can’t get the flu shot because of her allergies to eggs. Perhaps the timing of the virus can attribute to how the vaccine is made by eliminating “eggs” in the vaccine.
            My family and I have always gotten our flu shots every year for as long as I can remember. If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet I would suggest you do. After reading this article it might encourage you too.

Check the article out!

1 comment:

  1. C - Aware +
    R - Reflective
    A - Reflective
    I - Aware
    S - Aware

    Final Grade (You may remove this comment at your discretion): Aware +

    To improve: The conclusion did not seem to flow from the main body of your article i.e. time sensitivity of virus activity.

    ReplyDelete