Scientists have shown in a lab how bird flu could change in three simple mutations and become capable of spreading from human to man .
But fear not , you could put by your Hazmat suit for now – the researchers did not neuter the whole virus itself ( we ’ve all determine enough disaster pic to avoid that blunder ) . Their incredible research will also help scientist keep one stride ahead of the computer virus to prevent potential spread .
The researchers are interested in a strain called Avian grippe A(H7N9 ) . This virus has infect over 900 people since 2013 , according to theWorld Health Organization . However , the immense majority of these cases have been with people who work within the poultry manufacture and the computer virus is not capable of spreading sustainably among human yet .
In a worse case scenario , the virus could mutate into a form that could do this and likely spread like wildfire . So , scientists from the Scripps Research Institute in California have been playing around with unlike mutations of the H7N9 ’s genome to see what would make the virus up to of jumping from human to human . Their studywas late published in the journalPLOS Pathogens .
They specifically await at a protein on the grippe virus surface called H7 hemagglutinin that earmark the virus to bind to host prison cell and taint them . They discovered it takes belittled mutations in three amino acids set up on the flu virus open to allow the virus to become better at binding to cell receptor found on human cells , compared to those on bird cadre .
In the lab , they produced these three-fold - variation H7 hemagglutinins and show they can successfully latch onto cells in sample distribution of human trachea tissue .
Safety regulation prohibit enter these mutations to actual H7N9 viruses , so the study writer stress they did not make any viruses , they plainly used a benignant fragment of the computer virus . The sport to an actual H7N9 virus background would represent gain - of - function experiment that are currently banned ( for understandable ground ) .
Still , should we be frighten by these findings ? Not yet , it seems . Fiona Culley , an expert in respiratory immunology at Imperial College London , toldReutersthat the chances of all three of these mutations occurring together are “ comparatively scurvy . ”
" This study will help us to supervise the peril posed by bird flu in a more informed way , and increase our knowledge of which changes in bird flu viruses could be potentially severe will be very useful in surveillance , " she said .
