Reading Genomes: The Key to Life and to Thwarting Death

Simons Foundation, September 30, 2021.

In a hospital in Wuhan, China, a 41-year-old man struggles to breathe. He came in on December 26, 2019, with a fever and flu-like symptoms, but doctors can’t figure out what’s ailing him. Several other people at his workplace, an indoor seafood market, are also sick.

His doctors run tests for influenza and other infections, but the results come back negative. Next, they collect a sample from his lungs by flooding his airway with a sterile saline solution, then suctioning out the fluid. Read More >