CDC puts genetic sequences of about 40 human H5N1 viruses into public domain
Aug. 7, 2006 Canadian Press
Written by: Helen Branswell
(CP) – Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have placed the genetic blueprints of about 40 H5N1 viruses isolated from human bird flu cases in Indonesia into one public access database.
They will log the huge new collection into another database as well, the director of the agency’s influenza division said Monday.The move to put the data in the public domain, giving scientists from around the world free access, came after the Indonesian government told the World Health Organization on Thursday that it was willing to share the genetic sequences of all H5N1 viruses isolated from humans there.
“We feel this is a public health problem of global proportion and that therefore it is in the best interest of global public health to have the data available for as many creative minds and well-trained minds as possible,” Dr. Nancy Cox, director of the CDC’s influenza division, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
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Viruses have a set of seven frequencies and the bird flu virus frequency set for the strain in the photo above is:
5666656 336765 265366 155376 83336 66655 15766
The gold stained items are the bird flu in the photo and several of the frequency components can be seen, i.e. 336765 (gold circles with white center), 265366 (gold fuzzy ellipses), and 155376 (gold rods). The highest frequency can be found in human cells infected with the virus of which there are none in the photo. The other frequencies are related to protein components not evident in the photo.
Each viral strain needs to be targeted separately and frequency sets need to be developed for the other 39 strains in the CDC database.