07 Dec 2020
Setting it Straight: Virus, pathogenesis, epidemiology and vaccination in the complex ecosystems of us
Setting it Straight - Issue #36
Written by Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty
The disease we call COVID-19 is a confrontation between a very small, rapidly multiplying invader (SARS-CoV-2) and the (by comparison) enormous, long-lived, slowly-reproducing, multicellular, multi-organ system we call a human being. Accessing our upper respiratory tract in the air we breathe, the outer spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus attaches to the physiologically important (and ubiquitous) angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) molecule expressed on our respiratory epithelium. That binding event tricks the cell into internalising the virus particle (virion) where, once in, the viral RNA is released and, with the co-option of some of our genes, the process of replication and producing new virions gets under way.