A&M-Texarkana professor presents session on viruses at Kansas City symposium
Dr. Benjamin Neuman, chair of the biology department at Texas A&M UniversityTexarkana, recently presented a session on new viruses at the XIVth International Ni dovirus Symposium in Kansas City, Mo.
The presentation, “Novel nidolike virus genomes associated with eukaryotic intracellular RNA pools,” focused on “new viruses discovered here at A&M-Texarkana by scanning sequence data from spiders, tiny crab-like marine creatures, frogs and a large sea slug,” Neuman said.
“There is a world of new viruses out there, and new ones keep popping up”, Neuman said. ”Whenever anyone reads genetic data from a plant or animal, they will also pick up the viruses inside that organism. As it turns out, the average healthy-looking living thing is infected with around a dozen viruses at a time, most of which are new to science. In this study, we were looking for a particular kind of giant virus called a nidovirus, and what we found changes the way we look at this group of viruses.
“Before this conference, we thought it was mostly people, farm animals and mosquitoes that catch nidoviruses. These new viruses show that nidoviruses are in most kinds of animals, suggesting that this group of viruses is able to make big evolutionary leaps between very different kinds of hosts,” Neuman said.
The International Nidovirus Symposium focuses on a unique group of viruses infecting a wide range of animal species and humans. Over the past 40 years, the Nidovirus Symposium has evolved into a triennial event that covers all aspects of cutting-edge nidovirus research and technological developments.
The nidovirus order comprises four families of positiveRNA viruses, including well-known human pathogens like MERS- and SARS-coronavirus, and economically important animal nidoviruses like those which cause porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome , porcine epidemic diarrhea, equine arteritis and chicken infectious bronchitis.
The symposium provides an opportunity for scientists from academia and industry to share their latest research findings, exchange ideas and develop collaborations.