Rebecca Skloot Quotes

The unique nature about the influenza virus is its great potential for changes, for mutation.

The nature of a protective immune response to HIV is still unclear. Because in a very, very unique manner, unlike virtually any other microbe with which we're familiar, the HIV virus has evolved in a way that the immune system finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the virus.

The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted. It mutates furiously, it has decoys to evade the immune system, it attacks the very cells that are trying to fight it, and it quickly hides itself in your genome.

The problem with Ebola is that it makes mistakes while it copies itself. The mistakes are actually good for Ebola because they help Ebola change, and as a result of this, as it jumps from one human body to the next, roughly half the time, it's got a mutation.

With the absence of a flu vaccination last year, I did not take a flu shot; but there is still some immunity that carries over from year to year; but about every 30 years, there is a major change in the genetics of the flu virus.

The swine flu is evolution, isn't it? In a way, it's an evolution of flu.

Radiation is one of the important factors in evolution. It causes mutation, and some level of mutation is actually good for evolution.

Mutations are exciting, there aren't nearly enough of them.

Madness is locked beneath. It goes into tissues, is swallowed by the cells. The cells go mad. Cancer is their flag. Cancer is thegrowth of madness denied.

Choose your mutations carefully...

Every time somebody new gets the Ebola virus, it mutates.

DNA is the master blueprint for life and constitutes the genetic material in all free-living organisms and most viruses. RNA is the genetic material of certain viruses, but it is also found in all living cells, where it plays an important role in certain processes such as the making of proteins.

AIDS is the revenge of the rain forest.

Ebola isn't a respiratory virus. It doesn't spread through the airborne route. So it's not likely to spread like wildfire around the world and kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. That's what I think of as the next big one.

A comparison between the triplets tentatively deduced by these methods with the changes in amino acid sequence produced by mutation shows a fair measure of agreement.

Just as the only reservoir for the typhus virus in nature is provided by man, so the only vector of infection is the louse. The bite of the louse is not virulent immediately after the infecting meal. It becomes so only towards the 7th day following infection.

What seems to be clear to me is that after the primary infection most of the cells die indirectly, but at the later stage, when the viral load is very high, the virus kills a lot of cells directly.

Without effective human intervention, epidemics and pandemics typically end only when the virus or bacteria has infected every available host and all have either died or become immune to the disease.

Most mutations involve typos: Something bumps a cell's elbow as it's copying DNA, and the wrong letter appears in a triplet - CAG becomes CCG.

It's interesting to note that when something like a virus tries to poison us, the first thing our bodies do is heat up. We burn away the infection. Maybe that's what Earth is doing to us.

Each nuclear bomb test spreads an added burden of radioactive elements over every part of the world. Each added amount of radiation causes damage to the health of human beings all over the world and causes damage to the pool of human germ plasma such as to lead to an increase in the number of seriously defective children that will be born in future generations.

The fundamental issue is not whether there will be cloned cells but whether individuals will be allowed to change their bodies at the genetic level…. For individuals with genetic conditions they would like to change, genetic medicine is the hope for a better life.

I could foresee some terrific political and legal battles if women find out they have Zika in the later terms of their pregnancy.

I have not mutated myself in any way.

We don't know what we don't know about Ebola. We think we know it's a virus, but is it mutating? Can it be spread by airborne?