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MADISON - In the 1966 novel, Fantastic Voyage, written by biochemist and author Isaac Asimov, a crew of people become miniaturized in order to travel through the body of a scientist and save him from a blood clot in his brain.
For University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist and flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka, recently seeing real, active influenza infection in the lungs of living mice for the first time was reminiscent of this 50-year-old piece of science fiction, which was also adapted into a film.
Publishing today (June 25, 2018) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Kawaoka and his team describe a new tool they call FluVision, which allows them to witness influenza infection in a living animal in action. Moreover, it provides a window into a world none have seen before, allowing scientists to observe and better understand what happens when a virus infects the lungs and the body responds.
"Now we can see inside of the body in real time in virus-infected animals," says the UW-Madison professor of pathobiological sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. "It's like we can shrink and go inside the body."
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For University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist and flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka, recently seeing real, active influenza infection in the lungs of living mice for the first time was reminiscent of this 50-year-old piece of science fiction, which was also adapted into a film.
Publishing today (June 25, 2018) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Kawaoka and his team describe a new tool they call FluVision, which allows them to witness influenza infection in a living animal in action. Moreover, it provides a window into a world none have seen before, allowing scientists to observe and better understand what happens when a virus infects the lungs and the body responds.
"Now we can see inside of the body in real time in virus-infected animals," says the UW-Madison professor of pathobiological sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. "It's like we can shrink and go inside the body."
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