Designer Flu
How scientists made a killer virus airborne — and who should know
Last summer, scientists performed an experiment that could have been ripped from the script of a Hollywood thriller. Sealed off in high-tech laboratories in the Netherlands and Wisconsin, researchers transformed one of the world’s most deadly viruses, transmissible by direct contact, into versions capable of spreading through the air.
Unlike in the movies, news of the lab-made viruses was not delivered as a threat, and the scientists doing the work weren’t henchmen of an evil dictator or members of a shadowy terrorist organization. Instead, the researchers were on the good-guy team — respected academics investigating how a type of flu virus that typically targets birds might become contagious in people.
Though the avian flu virus known as H5N1 infects and kills mostly birds — including chickens, turkeys and waterfowl — it has sickened more than 600 people worldwide since an outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997, killing about half of them. The virus doesn’t pass easily from person to person even with close contact, let alone through the air. Most victims contracted it after handling infected birds or from contaminated environments.