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Dispatches from the Field:
Sacred Mountain and Deadly Virus
By Ryan Ferrell
July 16, 2007
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| Ryan Ferrell in Confucius' hometown. |
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As I’m writing this, I'm stuck in a fan-cooled, dark, slummy Internet bar until I can board a train for the six-hour ride back to Beijing with a standing-only ticket. Not exactly the ideal vacation for most people (or myself). I just hiked 6660 steps (or more than 660 yards in 3 1/2 hours) up one of the most, if not the most, famous mountain in China.
Taishan is where the sun supposedly starts its journey across the country. Legend has it that whoever steps through its heavenly gates will live to be 100 years old. Right now, I don't think my feet and thighs will get to be 30. If it’s any consolation, I met a Chinese student who just climbed Mount Taishan for the 10th time. His feet will probably fall off tomorrow.
My short vacation was my last throw-caution-to-the-wind trip before I started work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, where I will be building a computer model of a component of the H5N1 avian flu virus for the next two months. I’ve wound up in Beijing because of academic interest, family influence and the sheer thrill of traveling through China.
I became interested in China because a woman from Shanghai married into my family (through my cool uncle). I felt it was weird that a language and cultural divide separated our family. Family was my first motivation to study Mandarin and Chinese culture, but soon more motivations piled up. Many good friends of mine speak Mandarin (not to mention that one-fourth of the world does, too). China is a growing country and might eclipse or rival the United States in my lifetime. Ignorance of a culture and country that is that important to future world affairs isn’t an option. Additionally, learning Mandarin is a mental challenge that crossword puzzles and organic chemistry can't rival. As a visual learner, Mandarin’s writing system is mental candy to me. I love this language. It's simple, yet deliciously complex.
I spent last summer here studying Mandarin and backpacking around southern China. After my plane landed in San Francisco, my blood beat to return to China. However, I knew I couldn't return just to travel because adults unfortunately don't look too kindly on goofing off at my age. So last fall, I started looking for a program that would let me return to China and allow me to use my science background. I found the Pacific Rim Undergraduate Experience, or PRIME, by accident and took interest in computational avian flu research led by Dr. Wilfred Li. H5N1 avian flu research is historic. Never before has the international scientific community come together to prevent a virus from causing an epidemic before it has the ability to do so. The SARS epidemic was prevented by quick reaction, but an H5N1 epidemic may be avoided by humans thinking faster than evolution!
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| Ryan Ferrell poses with one of the Beijing Olympic mascots. |
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This summer, I am setting up a computational model of H5N1 avian flu’s hemagluttinin, the surface protein that mediates initial infection, to identify molecular interactions that allow the binding to a human or avian host. I will use software to introduce mutations to the computational model in hopes of elucidating the molecular mechanics behind mutations in previously published wet-lab experiments. The ultimate goal will be to identify interactions key to the avian-to-human jump.
As few as a single amino acid mutation allowed the 1918 flu virus to achieve this interspecies jump and cause more deaths than all of the wars of the 20th century combined. H5N1 has the potential to cause even more destruction, especially with modern global trade and tourism. At the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Monterey this year, speakers described the possible effects of H5N1, including halting the global economy and killing a massive percentage of the world's human population.
While the World Health Organization does not yet consider the H5N1 avian flu virus as capable of sustained human-to-human transmission, the occurrence of possible human-to-human transmission in a West Indonesian infection cluster warrants concern that the virus is edging towards a species jump. The ultimate goal of H5N1 research is to develop drugs to halt a massive epidemic before that happens. My research will not create such a drug, but it provides background information that much smarter people than I could use to do so.
On paper, this summer's program may well be the perfect fit for me. We'll see. As with anything in China, I won't know if I like it or not until it's over.
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Ferrell studies in Beijing and visited Mt. Taishan. |
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