Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 20/10/2013 21:32:39
-
The influenza virus bypasses defences by attacking immune memory cells that are an early warning system to prevent repeat infections...
Read the whole story on our website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/news/news/1000353/)
-
Is this as much "reinfecting", as targeting the same immune system cells that play a major roll in fighting the infection.
In computer terms, many computer viruses are designed specifically to target and disable the antivirus programs on the computer.
Disease Amnesia would be interesting to research.
For example, in mice,
Expose a group of mice to Virus A.
After they recover, expose half to Virus B, and half to no virus.
Once again, after they recover, expose all mice to Virus A again.
The question would be whether the exposure to Virus B caused an amnesia effect for Virus A (by killing B cells targeted to virus A).
Your article suggested that there were many B cells not associated with the lungs. There was also a question recently whether vaccines should target the expected mode of entry (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/news/news/1000331/). Perhaps there would be benefits of developing B cells both at the site of entry, as well as away from the expected site of entry.
Perhaps better understanding the interaction between viruses and the immune system will also help give better insight to HIV/AIDS.
-
Could you post the citation so the paper can be found more easily?