HEALTHCARE
Decoding COVID-19
D. Brian Nichols, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Seton Hall University,
discusses COVID-19’s virus-host interactions and, specifically, how the virus affects people.
Compiled by John Joseph Parker
mistakes result in viruses that are capable of
infecting new hosts. This event likely led to the
emergence of the novel coronavirus, officially
designated as SARS-CoV 2, the causative agent
of COVID-19.
The most likely scenario at present is that
humans came in contact with animals in Chi-
nese wet markets. The large number of people
in contact with exotic live animals there, com-
bined with butchering these animals in that
wet market, created what could be seen as the
perfect environment where the new SARS-CoV
2 could emerge to infect humans.
Contributing Editor
A
s the COVID-19 pandemic continues
to progress in the United States and
worldwide, many are trying to better
understand what the virus is and how it affects
humans. D. Brian Nichols, assistant professor
in the Department of Biological Sciences at
Seton Hall University, has conducted extensive
research on virus-host interactions and, specif-
ically, how viruses affect the immune responses
of their hosts. He recently addressed these top-
ics as they pertain to COVID-19.
COMMERCE: COVID-19 is referred to as a “novel
virus.” Can you tell us what that means?
D. BRIAN NICHOLS: “Novel” in this context
means that it recently emerged to affect hu-
mans. It is strongly believed that bats are the
source of the current infectious agent with an
unknown animal likely serving as an interme-
diate host. Bats harbor a wide variety of coro-
naviruses related to the original SARS-CoV. As
the human population comes more and more
in contact with these animals, risk of exposure
and the risk of viruses that can infect humans
goes up significantly.
Coronaviruses are RNA viruses, which means
RNA is the genetic material. Unlike cellular or-
ganisms that use DNA as the genetic material,
RNA viruses replicate without significant proof-
reading of their genetic material. What that
means is that these viruses—which reproduce
themselves over and over again—make a lot of
mistakes when the genetic material is copied.
Most of these mistakes lead to inactive virus-
es that lose the ability to infect cells, but some
26 COMMERCE www. commercemagnj.com
Q. Being a new virus, what impact does this have on
human beings and the prospects of a potential vaccine?
A. Being a new virus that has never circulated
in humans before means that vaccine research
essentially started when the virus was identi-
fied in December 2019. Simply put, until it was
identified, there was no virus to design a vaccine
against. Normally, vaccines take years to be devel-
oped and go through human trials. The fact that
we have a vaccine in trials is really amazing and a
tribute to the hard work of the researchers who
have been studying this virus. As my colleague
Dr. Constantine Bitsaktsis, who studies vaccine
development, has pointed out, the speed and
approval for clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines
is truly unprecedented. However, evaluating the
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