Disease controlled. (Letters).Nicholas Thompson writes, "When a mysterious virus popped up in New Mexico a few years ago, scientists had little idea how to respond until realizing that its sequence closely matched a group of viruses endemic to Asia found in GenBank." ("May the Source Be With You," July/August) Not so. The folks at CDC See Control Data, century date change and Back Orifice. CDC - Control Data Corporation figured it out first in the wet labs using antibodies from serum of people infected with related viruses. Only later did they confirm the findings with similarity studies to the sequences of the virus. However, Thompson's point is well taken. The HCV HCV abbr. hepatitis C virus HCV 1 Hepatitis C virus, see there 2. Human coronavirus. See Coronavirus. , HEV HEV abbr. hepatitis E virus HEV hemagglutinating encephalomyelitis virus of pigs. , and HGV HGV (in Britain, formerly) heavy goods vehicle HGV (Brit) n abbr (Hist) (= heavy goods vehicle) → Lkw m Hepatitis viruses were each discovered by similarity studies of the nucleotide sequences. KIRK FRY via email Nicholas Thompson responds: Kirk Fry is correct that the very first evidence implicating im·pli·cate tr.v. im·pli·cat·ed, im·pli·cat·ing, im·pli·cates 1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot. 2. the virus came from antibodies isolated from the initial disease victims, and I erred in suggesting otherwise. However, after the initial isolation, GenBank played the crucial role of helping to determine whether this was a new disease or an old virus that had evolved a new pathogenicity. There are certainly many other examples of GenBank's importance, and Mr. Fry suggests three good ones. |
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