Two studies published in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens provide new evidence supporting an important role for the immune system in shaping the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These findings—and the novel technology behind them—improve understanding of…
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How do viruses evolve in bats?
Bats have played a crucial epidemiological role in the evolution of many viruses and house many coronaviruses. Until 2002, coronaviruses had been known to cause mild respiratory ailments in human beings. However, this notion changed in the same year when…
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Scientists study how a single gene alteration may have separated modern humans from extinct hominins
As a professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, has long studied how the brain develops and what goes wrong in neurological disorders. For almost as…
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What are Viral Retroposons?
By Gillian D’Souza, MSc Retroposons are repetitive DNA fragments that are inserted into a host chromosome after reverse transcription from an RNA molecule. Credit: Katryna Kon/Shutterstock.com Retroposons that share structural similarities with retroviruses, such as the HIV virus, are called…
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Virus evolution could undermine a COVID-19 vaccine—but this can be stopped
The first drug against HIV brought dying patients back from the brink. But as excited doctors raced to get the miracle drug to new patients, the miracle melted away. In each and every patient, the drug only worked only for…
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Researchers probe cancer’s ongoing evolution
Cancers gain and lose large sections of chromosomes in some of their cells but not in others, a process that may indicate ongoing evolution and selection for preferred traits, report a team of researchers led by the Max Delbrück Center…
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