Paul Turner Influenza Lab Report

A virus can host shift from animals to humans by evolving and adapting to their new host. The virus has to be able to adapt to their new host by adjusting the enzymes to a new temperature and invading different kinds of cells from their previous host. Viruses spread amongst their hosts species accordingly to each kind. For instance, birds spread the influenza viruses by contaminating water with their droppings. However, the virus adapted to humans by spreading through the airway therefore allowing coughing and sneezing infecting others. An experiment conducted by Paul Turner revealed the process of pathogens host shifting and how they adapt. Turner infected the virus phi 6 into specific plant bacteria and discovered that the virus not only grew slower on the new host, but that each virus contained a mutation on a gene with a protein called P3

Influenza is a simple eight piece RNA with a surface protein called hemagglutinin that our body does not recognize as a pathogen and in result infects up to sixty million people a year. This virus invades our cells and rapidly replicates itself in its host to up to one million copies. The virus obtains mutations at a rapid pace which allows it to host shift year after year by adapting to its new hosts. We do make vaccines yearly by introducing that season’s flu virus’s surface protein into our immune system. However, they evolve so quickly by combining two different strains that infected the same host and is now a new strain that is immune to the previous season’s vaccine. Like all viruses, influenza can be traced back to its origin which is an avian source. Bird flu’s are unlikely to directly infect humans because the virus is unfamiliar with a human host’s biology. However, if a bird flu were to infect a human and combine with the influenza flu and obtain its surface proteins then a new deadly virus would