avian influenza
gregladen | April 20, 2015Unless you are living in a chicken coop, you have probably heard about the Turkey Crisis in Minnesota and surrounding upper plains/midwestern states. Every few days we hear more news: Millions of farmed turkeys are being put down in one turkey farm after another, because the farm's turkeys are infested with the H5N2 bird flu.
I should say right away, that according to the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association, there is no significant risk of a turkey shortage. While it is always bad to count your chickens before they hatch, apparently this is not a big problem with the larger fowl.
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tsmith | June 19, 2013Student guest post by Julia Wiederholt
I don’t think there is a single person that can claim to have never had the joyous experience (sarcasm intended) of suffering from the influenza. We all recognize the common symptoms that accompany this infectious little virus taking up residence in our bodies: the chills accompanying a fever, the total body ache, the nausea, and overall feeling of malaise. Typically this virus comes and goes within a week without serious side effects. When novel strains of the influenza pop up however, there can be more serious complications as your body lacks a…
sporte | September 11, 2007Two protein structures from an avian influenza virus are shown below. One form of the protein makes influenza virus resistant to Oseltamivir (Tamiflu®)
Don't worry, these proteins aren't from H5N1, but they do come from a related influenza virus that also infects birds.
technorati tags: molecular models, protein structures, influenza, bioinformatics, Cn3D
One protein structure is from a strain that is sensitive to an anti-viral drug called "Tamiflu®". The other structure is from the same virus, except there's a slight difference. A single base change in the viral RNA changed the codon that…