The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, directed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, is conducting research involving the creation of a more severe strain of monkeypox in an effort to help develop better vaccines for humans, the organization said.
The virus will be given to mice in order to track its progress, and help scientists understand what needs to be done to ensure humans are better protected depending on how certain genes act.
According to the Daily Mail, the research is being conducted by a team at the NIAID headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland led by Dr. Bernard Moss.
Creating the new hybrid strain of monkeypox involves extracting genes from the clade 1 variant of the virus, which kills one in ten people it infects, and inserting them in the more mild clade 2 variant, which scientists have determined to be behind the current outbreak. Read more…
