{"id":9288,"date":"2025-04-23T10:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=9288"},"modified":"2025-04-23T10:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:32:14","slug":"bird-flu-studies-show-variant-from-2016-was-one-mutation-away-from-binding-to-human-receptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/04\/23\/bird-flu-studies-show-variant-from-2016-was-one-mutation-away-from-binding-to-human-receptors\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu studies show variant from 2016 was one mutation away from binding to human receptors"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2025-04-bird-flu-variant-mutation-human.html\">Medical Express<\/a> A variant of the bird flu virus, collected in 2016 and no longer in circulation, was just one mutation away from being able to bind to human receptors. This finding underscores that certain bird flu strains have the potential to cross over to humans and possibly trigger a pandemic. The variant currently circulating does not yet have the ability to bind to human receptors. The two studies, published in&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2419800122\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"PNAS, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PNAS<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-025-08822-5\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Nature, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nature<\/a><\/em>, were led by Utrecht University researchers Robert de Vries and Geert-Jan Boons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Viruses use receptors\u2014molecules found on the surface of cells\u2014to attach to and enter those cells. Different animal species have different types of receptors. So for a virus to infect humans and spread from person to person, it must first be able to bind to human receptors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2025-04-bird-flu-variant-mutation-human.html\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Medical Express A variant of the bird flu virus, collected in 2016 and no longer in circulation, was just one mutation away from being able to bind to human receptors. This finding underscores that certain bird flu strains have the potential to cross over to humans and possibly trigger a pandemic. The variant currently circulating [&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-9288","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\/9288","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=9288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9289,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions\/9289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}