LSU Shreveport Researcher Discovers 7 Coronavirus Variants
It seems as though for a moment, the focus came off of our long global pandemic nightmare. Sure, the current weather situation is grim - but don't let that lull you into thinking what we've moved on from COVID-19! This is 2021, we do multiple catastrophes at once!
All kidding aside, we can't let our guard down when it comes to the coronavirus. Thankfully, some really smart folks are burrowing into every aspect of the virus responsible for so much death and destruction to our way of life. One such dedicated soul is Jeremy Kamil.
Jeremy is the associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport, and he made an amazing (but pretty scary) discovery: The Virus is changing. According to WLTX, he discovered a mutation while sequencing samples from COVID-19 tests as part of the study at the center. The data from the study was made available to health officials around the world. That's when the calls started to come from around the planet from medical professionals that had discovered evidence of Jeremy's mutation.
So far, Kamil and his colleagues have found 7 different "SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein variants affecting amino acid position 677." When it comes to creating a defense against the virus, both your body and medical scientists mainly work to fight a specific disease. When the virus mutates, those defenses may not be as effective at fighting it. When we are just on the cusp of getting this thing under control.
One of the co-authors of the study, molecular epidemiologist Emma Hodcroft, says that there is no need to panic. While some mutations seem to have shown to be more contagious than the original strain - most are not, and all seem to susceptible to antibodies created in your body in response to the vaccine.