Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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H7N9

Bird flu shuffle probes viral compatibility

When influenza viruses that infect birds and humans meet in the same cell, they can shuffle their genomes and produce new strains that might have pandemic potential. Think of this process, called reassortment, as viruses having sex.

In the last several years, public health officials have been monitoring two varieties of bird flu viruses with alarming properties: H7N9 and H5N8. Scientists at Emory have been probing the factors that limit reassortment between these strains and a well-known strain (H3N2) that has been dominating the last few flu seasons in the United States.

Helen Branswell has an article in STAT this week, explaining that H5N8 actually emerged from reassortment  involving much-feared-but-not-damaging-to-humans-so-far H5N1:

Several years ago, these viruses effectively splintered, with some dumping their N1 neuraminidase — a gene that produces a key protein found on the surface of flu viruses — and replacing it with another. The process is called reassortment, and, in this case, it resulted in the emergence of a lot of new pairings over a fairly short period of time.

The most common and most dangerous viruses to emerge — for birds at least — have been H5N6 and H5N8 viruses. Both are highly pathogenic, meaning they kill domestic poultry.

“The H5N1 virus has not gone away. It’s just changed into different versions of itself,” explained influenza expert Malik Peiris, a professor of virology at the University of Hong Kong.

From the Emory study, the good news is that “packaging signals” on the H5 and H7 viral RNA genomes are often incompatible with the H3N2 viruses. That means it could be difficult for segments of the genome from the bird viruses to get wrapped up with the human viruses. But mix and match still occurred at a low level, particularly with H5N8. Read more

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Emory flu researchers support H7N9 plan

Three Emory scientists have signed a letter published last week in Nature and Science outlining proposed research on the H7N9 avian influenza virus. A strain of H7N9 transmitted from poultry to humans was responsible for 43 deaths in China earlier this year, but so far, evidence shows that the virus does not transmit easily from human to human.

The letter advocates additional research including “gain-of-function” experiments: identifying what changes to naturally occurring viral strains would make them more transmissible, deadly, or drug-resistant in mammals.

The group of 23 flu researchers, led by Ron Fouchier at http://www.agfluide.com Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin, say these types of experiments are needed to help public health authorities prepare for and respond to potential future outbreaks.

The letter signers from Emory are: Walter Orenstein, MD, professor of medicine and principal investigator for the Emory-University of Georgia Influenza Pathogenesis and Immunology Research Center (IPIRC), Richard Compans, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and scientific director of IPIRC, and John Steel, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology. Read more

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology 1 Comment