Mutations of Ebola

[Don Haut]

In article <4353of$im3 at vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, hamlet at ux7.cso.uiuc.edu (James
J Hurlburt) wrote:

> I hope that I'm not mistaken but wasn't the version of Ebola that broke
> in the lab monkeys in the United States airborn? At least in the book
> "The Hot Zone" it mentioned that monkeys in different cages and in seprate
> rooms were infecting each other. By dumb luck this new version of the virus
> wasn't deadly to humans.

The current feeling among the experts (of which I am not) is that it was
probably not "airborn" in the sense that the virus can float around
through the air on it's own and infect like that.  There was extensive
discussion about this during prior threads on this group.  If you fid the
archives you will probably get more information than you wish.  If you
want the best information about Filoviruses, do a quick medline search for
"Filovirus" (should be available at your university library).  This will
give you the articles that contain the real data about these viruses. 
Some of the information may be a bit technical but I think that with some
carefull reading anyone should be able to understand most of it.  If you
have any questions after that, most of the people on this group will be
able to help you.

Don

Don Haut 
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
University of Missouri-Columbia
C601591 at showme.missouri.edu
314-882-3171