How Do Viruses Change to Create Outbreaks?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Rodney Rohde
In this program:
How do viral outbreaks emerge from evolving viruses? Medical laboratory scientist Dr. Rodney Rohde explains factors that cause viruses to adapt, how they differ from viruses and fungi, and medical strides that are helping with diagnostics and patient care.
Transcript
Interviewer:
So, Dr. Rohde, just to give us some background for those who aren't very familiar with immunology and how viruses kind of adapt and how they mutate and whatnot, how do viruses evolve and adapt to new hosts or environments leading to outbreaks?
Dr. Rodney Rohde:
Yeah, another great question. And so, first of all, I'll just mention as a virologist and a microbiologist, I always believe viruses are some of the most diabolical yet interesting agents we face in our world. The viral infection is a very highly and dynamic process. And, in fact, it kind of leads to this constant ongoing evolutionary changes really on both sides of the virus and the host...
Interviewer:
…in the host.
Dr. Rodney Rohde:
So they really mutate very fastly, and it's in a large population. And all of those factors really allow viruses to rapidly adapt to their host. So again, unlike maybe bacteria or fungi or even other agents, viruses are just so fast with respect to how quickly they can infect and reproduce that they change almost so fast that we have a hard time keeping up. And as you follow the current pandemic and some of the other issues around Mpox, for example, and other ongoing outbreaks, people are often asking, "Why can't we have a vaccine? Why can't we have an antiviral or some therapeutic?" And unfortunately, the answer is going to be, probably going into the future it takes time to do those types of things, whether it's therapy, diagnostic testing or whatever. And the virus doesn't really care. They're so fast and so rapid that we're always struggling to keep up, but we are making strides there with mRNA technology and other types of diagnostics in the molecular area.
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