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Researchers Reconstruct 1918 Flu Virus
Gnpatton writes "CNN is running a story on how researchers have recreated the gene sequence for the 1918 virus which claimed 50 million lives. The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost. From the article: 'Using a technique called reverse genetics, the Mount Sinai researchers used the genetic coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids.'" Researchers are hoping that reconstructing a virus like this will help them to better understand similar problems. The structure was originally determined earlier this year.
Then again, this article is hugely outdated, as a simple wikipedia article tells us they recreated the virus in 2002 already. That leads to an even more doubtful stance on the exact reasons for creating this particular strain today...
You misread it: In an experiment, published in October 2002, they were successful in creating a virus with two 1918 genes.
It does not say they recreated the original virus. The 1918 virus occured before flu vaccines had come about. As such, we currently have no vaccine against that particular strain. The researchers think that by studying the 1918 virus they can learn some information that may help with the current avian flu 5HN1.
Does the 1918 virus scare the shit out of me? Yes, just as much as the idea of 5HN1 infecting humans. But if studying the 1918 flu help combat 5HN1, I'm all for it.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
"Almost" doesn't cut it. And if you think the former Soviet Union (and former United States) really eliminated their last reserves of the virus, you're seriously deluded.
> Now they are reviving an old virus that was completely eradicated. This does not make sense, other than for the nobel-prize signs in the scientists eyes (which they should not get).
The 1918 pandemic strain killed off the most vulnerable portion of the population three or four generations ago. Subsequently, mutations to that strain that were less virulent than the original appeared. These less-virulent strains didn't kill their hosts as quickly (and often, didn't kill the host at all!), and turned out to be better-adapted to their environment than the original. These less-virulent strains worked their way throughout the rest of the population. The world ended up with a not-so-bad version of the flu, and a relatively high resistance in the surviving population. All in all, a lousy environment for the original or the less-virulent strains to propagate.
Don't worry about the 1918 flu getting out. First, it almost certainly won't. Second, if it does, it won't be nearly as bad as it was in 1918, largely due to the fact that anyone who was highly vulnerable to it had been ejected from the gene pool by 1920.
> I could name hundreds of things that could go wrong, and will not even start wildly speculating what would happen if 5HN1 somehow mutates with this virus.
Don't worry about an H5N1 recombination (or reassortment) with the 1918 flu. You'd need someone to be simultaneously infected with both viruses. The probability of that is vanishingly small. (As is the probability of the 1918 flu escaping and setting up a reservoir population in birds or pigs.)
Worry about a human-to-human transmissible evolution of H5N1. If the strain currently fiddling around Jakarta is reproducing by means of human to human transmission, and if that strain is doing so via casual contact (to date, it appears that most cases from this cluster involve zoo visitors, their immediate families, and health care workers -- so we don't yet have confirmation of h2h transmission, let alone via casual contact), then worry.
If a human-to-human transmissible of H5N1 shows up, and if it's as lethal to humans as the version currently floating around Asia, you're looking at somewhere between 100M and 300M dead before a weaker variant evolves.
The 1918 flu didn't kill very many people directly. What killed was secondary infections such as pneumonia. Modern medicine may not be much better than 1918 medicine at dealing with viruses, but treatment of bacterial infections has come a long way since then. Besides, we don't have an entire generation of young men who were exposed to poison gas this time around.
I don't think that the 1918 flu would be the major killer now that it was originally.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
But...but...from TFA:
"The plasmids then were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction."
I read Usenet for the articles.
This story was covered in somewhat more intelligent detail by NPR's "All Things Considered"
1) The Virus is being reconstructed as best they can.
2) The researchers aren't even using Level 5 isolation because -- guess what -- they expect that we're all pretty much immune to the virus these days. (They'll be the first to go if they're wrong...)