From Wired today, Flu Pandemics May Lurk in Frozen Lakes
Too much going on last few days. Haven’t blogged for couple days. The talk today was pretty refreshing. An intereing article from Wired.
- “It can bring a set of viral genes back to life that have been frozen for centuries or thousands of years,” said environmental biologist Scott Rogers of Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
- They presented their latest evidence today at the American Society for Microbiology meeting in Philadelphia.
- The worst in recent memory were the Spanish flu in 1918, the Asian flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong flu in 1968.
- Scientists have in fact detected influenza viruses frozen in the ice and mud of lakes in Alaska, Siberia and elsewhere.
- Dany Shoham, who studies biological warfare at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Bar-Ilan University in Israel, first sidled up to the idea that influenza viruses may hide in ice during the 1990s.
- But Shoham noticed something strange: Influenza viruses isolated decades apart sometimes showed little sign of genetic drift.
- So, biophysicist Joshua Zimmerberg of the National Institutes of Health cooled an influenza virus below freezing while monitoring the properties of its membrane coating using a new technique called “magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance.” The idea that influenza may hide out in ice has struck a chord among some experts.
- “One of the challenges is where does this virus persist between pandemics?” said virologist Richard Slemons of Ohio State University, who has studied bird flu for 35 years.
- “The idea needs to be considered and explored.” Rogers believes global surveillance for influenza outbreaks should keep an eye on Arctic ice.
- “It’s our opinion that they are probably still viable,” says Rogers, “but we weren’t able to show that.” And Koer is screening ice from Antarctic lakes that have remained frozen for at least hundreds of years, using a technique which can detect any type of virus whether they infect, plants, animals, or bacteria.
Full Story: Flu Pandemics May Lurk in Frozen Lakes