Peter Kasson, MD, PhD
How do the viruses that cause diseases such as COVID-19 and the flu actually infect you? Peter Kasson, MD, PhD, from the UVA School of Medicine wrote an article for The Conversation that sheds light on this important question. The article was distributed by news outlets throughout the country.
Viruses cannot replicate on their own, so they must infect cells in your body to make more copies of themselves. The life cycle of a virus can thus be roughly described as: get inside a cell, make more virus, get out, repeat. Getting inside a cell, or viral entry, is the part of the cycle that most vaccines target, as well as a key barrier for viruses jumping from one species to another. Dr. Kasson’s lab and many others study this process to better anticipate and combat emerging viruses.
Read the full article in The Conversation.
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