For every infection, a reaction.

by Antonio Gregorio Dias Junior (twitter: @GregorioDias1) edited by: Layal Liverpool (twitter: @layallivs) Back in the old days, the use of animals for laboratory experimentation was not as tightly regulated as it is today. Consequently, several studies were routinely performed in wild animals caught in tropical rainforests from Asia and Africa. In one of these events, scientists in Denmark isolated the monkeypox virus (MPXV) for the first time in 1958 from a naturally-infected captive monkey. The virus was not believed to cause disease in humans until its first case detected in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Africa. This finding was very alarming as it came during the World Health Organization (WHO)-led global vaccination campaign to eradicate smallpox (1966-1980). Within this context, one could ask what monkeypox has to do with smallpox and why its discovery in humans was so alarming? Monkeypox as a threat during the smallpox eradication campaign The sma...

When I was a kid, I used to see bats as otherworldly creatures that could turn into vampires. Although I still cannot prove whether this is true or not, today I learned that bats are curiously weirdos. Scientists have discovered that bats carry a mutation in an immune (defence) protein, named STING. This mutation tentatively explains how bats can cope with the metabolic rates required for flying but also can carry, without disease symptoms, viruses that are rather deadly to humans. To explain this better, let's divide the cells into two compartments: cytoplasm and nucleus. DNA (the genetic material) is restricted to the nucleus and inside mitochondria (cytoplasmic organelles). This means no DNA should be found outside of these compartments. If for some reason this happens, this out-of-place DNA would indicate to the cells that stress or viral infection is taking place and the cells would respond to it by activating defence mechanisms (including cellular suicide!). Bats have not tak...