A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is part of a team that has identified changes in two viral building blocks called amino acids that allow the bird flu virus to recognize human flu virus receptors in people’s cells.
The two amino acid changes “can be used as a genetic marker for predicting a potential dangerous virus,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a flu researcher at UW’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said of their study published in today’s edition of the journal Nature.