{"id":10963,"date":"2025-12-03T16:41:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=10963"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:52:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:52:15","slug":"bird-flu-has-a-heat-proof-gene-that-protects-it-from-our-fever-defenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/12\/03\/bird-flu-has-a-heat-proof-gene-that-protects-it-from-our-fever-defenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu has a heat-proof gene that protects it from our fever defenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newatlas.com\/infectious-diseases\/bird-flu-resistant-fever\/\">NewAtlas<\/a> Scientists have discovered that avian influenza viruses have a gene that makes them incredibly resistant to heat, rendering our body&#8217;s natural defense system \u2013 fever \u2013 powerless in fighting infection. In fact, higher temperatures actually help the viruses replicate. Reserchers from the University of Cambridge and University of Glasgow have furthered our understanding of why bird flu is particularly dangerous when it infects humans, compared to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/newatlas.com\/disease\/mrna-flu-vaccine-trial\/?itm_source=newatlas&amp;itm_medium=article-body\">seasonal influenza A viruses<\/a>. And it comes down to one gene that appears to protect it from heat, known as BP1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newatlas.com\/health-wellbeing\/viral-infections-multiple-sclerosis-covid19-immune\/?itm_source=newatlas&amp;itm_medium=article-body\">Fever<\/a>&nbsp;is one of the oldest immune defenses found in mammals, raising core body temperature just enough to slow the replication of many pathogens, such as influenza A. Human-adapted seasonal influenza strains are finely tuned to the cooler environment of the upper airway, thriving at around 33 \u00b0C (91 \u00b0F) and losing steam rapidly as temperatures approach 40 \u00b0C (104 \u00b0F). Birds, on the other hand, run far hotter. Their normal body temperature sits between 40 \u00b0C and 42 \u00b0C (104 \u00b0F and 108 \u00b0F), and avian influenza viruses \u2013 including the highly pathogenic strains that occasionally spill over into humans \u2013 have evolved to replicate efficiently in that heat.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NewAtlas Scientists have discovered that avian influenza viruses have a gene that makes them incredibly resistant to heat, rendering our body&#8217;s natural defense system \u2013 fever \u2013 powerless in fighting infection. In fact, higher temperatures actually help the viruses replicate. Reserchers from the University of Cambridge and University of Glasgow have furthered our understanding of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10964,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10963\/revisions\/10964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}