Almost all human viruses whose origins are known have come from animals.
ECONOMIST: The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Two flu pandemics (in 1957 and 1968) that caused large numbers of human deaths were caused by human and animal viruses mingling to form hybrids.
Their concern was two-fold: Many fear that cultivating human cells close to mouse cells might allow animal viruses to move into the human population.
Since when is the human body, bacteria, viruses, and the immune system so predictable?
Such viruses include the human papilloma virus, which can lead to cervical cancer, and Kaposi's sarcoma, which affects patients with HIV.
The research, recently published in PLoS One, describes a novel approach to broad spectrum antivirals, which is based in part on how the human immune system takes down viruses.
However, xenotransplantation brings the risk of transplanting animal viruses and thus creating new human diseases.
" Adds William Haseltine, chairman of Human Genome Sciences and an expert on viruses: "We are entering the golden age of antivirals.
Also in Wednesday's edition of Nature, Dr. Daniel Salomon of the Scripps Institute reported that certain viruses unique to pigs can infect human cells.
Ferrets are often used in flu research because the animal's respiratory tract responds to flu viruses in much the same way as a human's.
The new technique, called metagenomics, for studying bacteria, viruses and other bugs, shows promise for studying human diseases.
Just as weather forecasters chart storms off Africa to predict which ones could become hurricanes, he hopes to create a database of animal viruses that have the potential to cross into the human population over the next few decades.
The firm's researchers can produce billions of viruses, each with a different binding site from a human antibody.
It is one of a growing number of viruses that attempted to infect machines and spread by exploiting human gullibility.
But a modified approach that does not involve viruses is likely to be the ultimate way of making human stem cells.
RSV, which generally circulates from late fall into the early spring, is out there with a myriad of other stuff floating around right now: Human metapneumovirus (hMPV), adenovirus and parainfluenza, all common respiratory viruses, and pertussis, the bacterial disease that causes whooping cough.
Flu viruses can swap genes with each other, so if someone carrying a human flu virus catches the new bird flu, the two strains could mingle inside the victim's body, creating a new, highly contagious and lethal human plague.
But bacteria and viruses breed fast, so natural selection has time, within the span of a human life, to make a difference.
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