# 5864
A week ago, in SciAm: What Will The Next Influenza Pandemic Look Like?, I referred my readers to an article on pandemic flu that included a snippet about research on the H5N1 virus conducted by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.
He basically `mutated the hell’ out of the virus in the lab, and then passed it serially through 10 ferrets, during which time it mutated further to become both easily transmissible and highly virulent.
You can read about this work in Katherine Harmon’s article.
Today, New Scientist has a follow up on this story, with details on this research and reaction from a variety of noted virologists, including Peter Palese, Peter Doherty, Malik Peiris, and Jeffery Taubenberger.
Which, anyway you measure it, it one heck of a line up.
The article is called:
Five easy mutations to make bird flu a lethal pandemic
26 September 2011 by Debora MacKenzie
And is absolutely worth your time to read.
While not everyone agrees that the H5N1 virus can adapt to humans (Peter Palese provides a dissenting opinion), this report serves as a reminder that it may take only a few small changes to change the virulence, transmissibility, or even the host range of an avian influenza strain.
