People should minimise contact with birds in areas affected by bird flu viruses, including farms and settings where live animals may be sold or slaughtered.
Tumors contain thousands of genetic changes, but only a few are actually cancer-causing. A quicker way to identify these driver mutations could lead to more targeted cancer treatments.
COVID-19 variants are the products of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They arise via mutations, but other forces also have roles to play in the generation and transmission of variants.
One of the ways the Omicron variant is different from other variants is the sheer number of mutations in the spike protein. Does this make it a super-variant?
Claire Guinat, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich; Etthel Windels, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich e Sarah Nadeau, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
After a nose swab tests positive for a virus or bacteria, scientists can use the sample’s genetic sequence to figure out where and when the pathogen emerged and how fast it’s changing.
Variants of the original SARS-CoV-2 are now in wide circulation. That means the third wave of COVID-19 has come with new questions about the variants, their effects and what might come next.
These variants are definitely cause for concern. But there’s every indication we can adapt our vaccine strategy to combat these and other variants going forward.
The virus is evolving and new strains are more transmissible. Will the vaccines work against these new variants? How can researchers stay ahead of the virus’s evolution?
Multiple COVID-19 variants are circulating around the world and becoming more common. These mutations can alter the ability of the virus to take hold and replicate within our cells.
A biologist who studies the evolution of diseases explains what’s different about the two new virus strains that have been found recently, and what that means for vaccine effectiveness.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a crippling, progressive neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. Now it seems that a diabetes drug may help some cases.
Bert Ely, University of South Carolina e Taylor Carter, University of South Carolina
Every time the virus copies itself it makes mistakes, creating a trail that researchers can use to build a family tree with information about where it’s traveled, and when.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Biological Sciences, Professor of Biological Sciences and Biomedical Informatics, and Director of the Vanderbilt Evolutionary Studies Initiative, Vanderbilt University