Lecture Podcast

Influenza viruses, particularly type A, have a high ability to evolve and mutate, leading to the emergence of new strains that can affect humans, birds, and swine. Transmission occurs through various means, including wild animals transmitting the virus to domestic poultry, and humans spreading the virus through the movement of infected animals and food. To combat this ongoing threat, it is crucial to have enhanced diagnostic tools to quickly identify new strains and prevent outbreaks. In the lab, researchers have been using 3D models called hairway organoids to test for influenza infections, with promising results. It is important to maintain surveillance on influenza viruses to prevent the emergence of new strains that could have severe consequences. Hi, everybody. I'll be talking about the pathogen I am studying at the moment, which is the influenza virus, specifically type A influenza, that is responsible for causing bird flu in avians. You have probably heard about the Spanish influenza pandemic that happened in 1918 and killed millions of people worldwide. Well, that pandemic arose as a result of an influenza virus, which had genes of avian origin and was able to develop into a strain that affected humans. The reason why this happened is because influenza viruses have an impressive ability to evolve and undergo mutations. And so new strains emerge very frequently. And some of these strains, they're actually able to be spread from atheins to humans and even to swines. To give you a bit of a background on how the spread and transmission of the viruses occurs, mutations are not the only reason for the transmission of this pathogen. One example are wild animals that live in the lakes and the lagoons. They can transmit the viruses to domestic poultry, and then from domestic poultry, the viruses get transmitted to us. And then interestingly, humans, they also play a role in the spread of the viruses. For example, when farmers and truck drivers move the food and the poultry between farms or within farms, if animals are infected, the viruses get spread within the domestic poultry and then from the domestic poultry to humans. Because the emergence of influenza strains that affect humans is still an ongoing threat, it is necessary to have enhanced diagnosis tools that provide a rapid and efficient identification of this pathogen. For this reason, in the lab that I'm working, we have been using hairway organoids, which are basically 3D modules that mimic the structure and function of the human hairways to test for influenza infections. These organoids, they have proven to be very efficient, has intracellular and extracellular viral loads increased significantly. We have also tested how effective 2D models were to identify influenza A viruses and compare these to 3D models. And it seems that 2D models are better because the viruses were able to replicate much more in these modules. So the point of my research and the message that I want to transmit to you is that we need to develop diagnosis tools that allows us to identify new influenza strains as quickly as possible so that we can prevent an outbreak and we can prevent the deaths of millions of people. Also, I would like to make you aware that surveillance on influenza viruses needs to be on because new strains of these pathogens are continuously arising and there is the possibility that a strain that affects humans or that a strain that we do not have immunity for can arise. So I think this is important and I think that we should not overlook influenza A virus surveillance. Thank you for listening and I hope you find influenza viruses as interesting as I do.