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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Long Read: “The Virus Detectives”

Long Read: “The Virus Detectives”

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Bad as Ebola is, I’m kinda fascinated by the stats on Lassa in this article. Only 84% of those sick enough to be hospitalized die — that seems pretty serious to me. Gina Kolata, in the NYTimes, on the scientists “Sifting Through Genes in Search of Answers… “:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — An old two-story brick building in a shabby part of town, formerly a distribution center for Budweiser beer, is now the world’s most powerful factory for analyzing genes from people and viruses.

And it is a factory. At any given time, 10,000 tiny test tubes each holding a few drops of gene-containing fluid are being processed by six technicians, working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — two on the night shift — using 50 dishwasher-sized machines in two large rooms…

It is all in service of researchers who work for the Broad Institute, a gleaming, lavishly endowed genetics center a few blocks away. The sequencing center has worked on human DNA from an international effort, the 1,000 Genomes Project, that looks at the genes of thousands of people from around the world. It has gotten sequences of microbes, like dengue fever, malaria and West Nile virus. It has gotten genetic sequences from animals like chimpanzees.

And it is here that Broad scientists studying Ebola and a similar deadly disease, Lassa, send their samples, taking advantage of what the center’s manager, Andrew J. Hollinger, referred to as superfast track sequencing in their urgent work on these diseases ravaging West Africa. Those scientists receive their sequence data in about 40 hours, compared with days for the usual work.

The Ebola and Lassa group, led by Pardis Sabeti, wants to know what the viruses look like. Do they mutate while they are infecting people, possibly evading the immune system? Are some strains more deadly than others? And what about the genetics of the people who are infected? Are some people more resistant, perhaps even immune, to these viruses because of tweaks in their own genes?….

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Gina Kolata?

    Did her parents meet for the second time via the personals or something, and she was given that name to memorialize it?

  7. 7.

    srv

    Who needs Ebola when you have Henry?

    Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put pressure on the Indian Government to agree a legal settlement that let the American chemical company Union Carbide off the hook for the 25,000 people killed by the toxic gas disaster in Bhopal 30 years ago.

    A letter released under freedom of ­information legislation reveals that the late Indian steel magnate JRD Tata wrote secretly to the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in May 1988 conveying ­Kissinger’s concern about the delays in reaching agreement on the compensation to be paid to victims.

    heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-thirty-years-on-the-secret-role-that-americas-henry-kissi…

  9. 9.

    BR

    @Baud:

    Um, are you serious or kidding? The virus is still raging on in West Africa. Just because the U.S. media hyped it and then dropped it doesn’t mean it was going to kill everyone instantly in October any more than it’s harmless now.

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: Call me a pandemic connoisseur. I’m fascinated by stuff, like Lassa, that kills “tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people” even when those people aren’t Americans… yet…

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @BR:

    are you serious or kidding?

    I’m going to let you noodle over that question tonight. Ask me again tomorrow if you’re still flummoxed.

  16. 16.

    BR

    @Anne Laurie:

    If I remember correctly the reason Lassa is less of a risk than Ebola is that it has been resolved in the past by letting cats take care of the mouse population. I think there are several hemorrhagic fevers like one from Bolivia that are spread by mice, and have been solved by releasing cats. More evidence that cats are awesome.

  19. 19.

    Elmo

    @Little Boots: everybody’s watching my Chargers.

    and everybody is in shock that apparently in today’s NFL you can take out the punter with impunity. roughing the kicker? What’s that?

  21. 21.

    Elmo

    @Little Boots:
    An arcane ritual, under which lower- and middle-class working people experience vicarious joy and sorrow over 22 rich young men and an oblong ball.

  23. 23.

    Elmo

    @Little Boots: mostly I think the vicarious participants feel the events more keenly sometimes than the rich young men. They are after all getting paid, but the poor sufferers like me are only in it for the ritual.

  26. 26.

    Elmo

    @Roger Moore: has that always been the rule? Because I swear I have always flinched when my guys go for the block, lest they accidentally run into the kicker. And I’m not a casual fan – I know the rules pretty well, and so does my wife. And both of us were just in shock and horrified.

  29. 29.

    Elmo

    @Omnes Omnibus: thanks.
    Weird. I’m usually one of those people in the bar explaining illegal motion (can’t move forward before the snap) and the significance of five yards past the line of scrimmage. But I did not know that.
    Damn.

  30. 30.

    ThalarctosMaritimus

    @Pogonip:

    Is anyone besides me familiar with Berton Roueche’s Medical Detectives articles?

    Oh, yes.

    I loved those stories in my (admittedly Wednesday Addams-like) childhood.

    You’ve reminded me to see if my library has the books. Thanks!

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Little Boots: In your mind. Mine is, of course, pure.

    @Elmo: It is part of the risk/reward calculus. I will note that, from my perspective as an former rugby player, blocking a punt hurts. On occasion the ball hit me in the face and then I collided with the boot of the guy who was punting. Then the whole falling face first on the ground thing happened. Ouch.

  33. 33.

    Mike J

    I normally find Will Ferrell to be one of the least funny people on the face of the earth (although not as unfunny as Adam Sandler), but Elf has got to be one of the best xmasers ever made. Pity that the Zooey Deschanel in the shower scene doesn’t deliver.

  40. 40.

    Mike J

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My nose remained unbroken throughout my rugby career; it bled on occasions but it didn’t break.

    You did better than me in my co-ed flag football career. It was impressive. Not just displaced cartilage, an actual break of the nasal bone.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mike J: My primary injury type was a series of left ankle sprains paired with the occasional right ankle sprain.

    ETA: Taping worked.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @Elmo:

    Because I swear I have always flinched when my guys go for the block, lest they accidentally run into the kicker.

    Sure; it’s a high risk play. If you almost block it but don’t quite get a piece of it, you’re very likely to hit the kicker, and you’ll be lucky to get away with “running into” rather than “roughing”. Not to mention that there’s a high risk of injury whether or not you get a piece of the ball.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mike J:

    I’m not sure how you expected a shower scene to pay off in a PG-rated family film, but I’m not sure I want to know. ;-) I like that scene, especially the conversation afterwards. Elf is probably my favorite modern Christmas movie, especially since it leans so heavily on one of my favorite classics, Miracle on 34th Street, while being completely its own movie.

  50. 50.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Little Boots: The knee was repaired. I have been advised the marathon running may not be compatible with the lack of cartilage in my left knee, but otherwise it works just fine.

  52. 52.

    Little Boots

    I’m not a doctor, as they say, but I bet you have another marathon in you. have no idea what I’m talking about, but …. I bet you do.

  62. 62.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @srv: Kissinger is striving to become the most successful war criminal to evade justice across two centuries.

  63. 63.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Mnemosyne: Elf is an amazing film. Newhart is so Newhart. Asner is great as Santa. Caan is so unlikable and Scrooge-like, but in a way that we all (I think) can relate rather than just being a cartoon. Zooey is a treat. Ferrell steals the show, but is so genuine about it. It’s like the camera isn’t there.

    Every time I see it I get genuinely teary-eyed. It’s endearing and touching without being schmaltzy and a really nice way to remember that feeling. Amélie does that for me, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    AnonPhenom

    @Anne Laurie:
    et al…

    And what about the genetics of the people who are infected? Are some people more resistant, perhaps even immune, to these viruses because of tweaks in their own genes?…

    This is one of the most fascinating areas of medicine today. Testing of patients for genetic phenotype is often standard practice today. In fact, failing to do so (as in the case of starting therapy with the antiretroviral abacavir to determine response or potentially fatal toxicity associated with the HLA-B5701 marker) is now seen by many as medical malpractice.

  65. 65.

    J R in WV

    @Elmo:

    If I recall correctly, the penalty for roughing the kicker only comes into play if you don’t block the kick. Since the Patriot player got the ball, he is allowed to kill hurt injure the kicker, if necessary or desirable.

    Perhaps that rule should be revisited?

  66. 66.

    Bob In Portland

    From the CDC:

    Marburg hemorrhagic fever (Marburg HF) is a rare but severe hemorrhagic fever which affects both humans and non-human primates. Marburg HF is caused by Marburg virus, a genetically unique zoonotic (or, animal-borne) RNA virus of the filovirus family. The five species of Ebola virus are the only other known members of the filovirus family.

    Marburg virus was first recognized in 1967, when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). Thirty-one people became ill, initially laboratory workers followed by several medical personnel and family members who had cared for them. Seven deaths were reported. The first people infected had been exposed to imported African green monkeys or their tissues while conducting research. One additional case was diagnosed retrospectively.

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