New York museum creates interactive exhibit on fossil virus

Photo by Dean Forbes Dr. Michael Emerman and graduate student Shari Kaiser employed the emerging field of paleovirology, the study of ancient viruses, to gain insight into human susceptibility to modern-day HIV infection.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York has created an interactive exhibit based on findings published in the June 22 issue of Science by Dr. Michael Emerman, Dr. Harmit Malik and Shari Kaiser. They reconstructed an ancient virus called Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus, or PtERV1, and found that human resistance to this retrovirus, which infected chimps millions of years ago, may be at least partially responsible for the susceptibility of humans to HIV infection today.

Access the Web version of the exhibit at http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org. A list of stories will appear on the right side. Please scroll down to "Ancient Immunity May Have Upped HIV Risk."

To read the full Center News feature story on the fossil virus, visit www.fhcrc.org/about/pubs/center_news/2007/jul/art1_hiv.html.

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