Last year at this time, SARS-CoV-2 (though it wasn't called that yet) was just beginning to emerge in a cluster of cases inside China . We know what has happened since then, but it bears repeating: 69 million global cases and over 1.5 million dead , as of December 10, 2020, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resources Center.
And as the virus raced around the world, science has also raced to understand how it actually works, biologically. Today on the Science Talk podcast, a virologist who has been part of that massive effort joins us.
Britt Glaunsinger  is a professor in the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She has been studying viruses for 25 years, with a particular focus, before December 2019, on the herpes virus. Over the last 12 months, her lab has been focusing on strategies the virus uses to suppress the body's innate immune system.