Ian Taylor at BBC Science Focus:
Imagine coasting through flu season with barely a sniffle. Or brushing off COVID, no matter how many times it mutated.
Imagine, in fact, that no virus can harm you, from chickenpox to Dengue to HIV. Even the deadliest viruses we know of, like rabies or Ebola, don’t cause you serious problems.
For a handful of people, this seems to be the case. Anyone with a specific and rare genetic mutation benefits from a superpowered side-effect: they fight off viruses with ease, to the extent that most of the time, they don’t even know they’ve been infected.
The mutation in question causes a deficiency in a key immune system protein called ISG15. In turn, this leads to a mildly elevated systemic inflammation in their bodies – it’s this inflammation that seems to subdue any virus that tries to get past.
When Dusan Bogunovic, professor of immunogenetics at Columbia University in New York, first discovered the mutation 15 years ago, he didn’t realise what was in front of him.
More here.
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