A RIYR
Fellowship
Shambhavi
Mishra
The story
begins here :
A New York Times article titled “Bad News Wrapped in Protein: Inside the Coronavirus Genome” written by Jonathan Corum and Caril Zimmer began my journey into understanding what this pandemic was on a genetic level. What I found were a string of letters in an order that was supposed to mean something. To a scientists these letters were RNA sequences that would unlock the mysteries behind what made the Coronavirus such a leathal disease. These letters were a code that nedded to be cracked. A puzzle that needed to be solved. A chaotic mess of data that needed to be detangled. And that was eactly what I set out to do.
Click to read
the NY Times article
What is an
RNA sequence?
Well it looks like this...
A colorful sequence of As, Cs, Us, and Gs. These letters represent the bases Adenine, Cytosine, Uracil, and Guanine. Unlike DNA, RNA is a single stranded molecule. Its backbone is made of alternating sugar and phosphate groups. Each sugar is bound with one of these colorful bases.
So how does
RNA work?
The DNA is the blueprint for every protein or gene that makes up every cell in our body. The RNA transfers these instructions to the proteins so that they perform tasks like holding the cell together or communicating with other cells.
So imagine that your body is like a symphony orchestra. This orchestra has various instruments, each playing their own part but all contributing to the whole masterpiece. In your body, there are many cells all of which are singing their own song. Each song is divided into melodic or harmonic parts that are like proteins carrying a specific signal, a specific part of the song. To play these parts, the musicians must follow their notes, their score, their set of instructions very carefully just like genes in DNA. When the melody gets louder they must crescendo, and when the harmony gets softer they must decrescendo. But to transfer notes on a page to the beautiful sounds of a symphony, the musicians need their instruments. They need the RNA. The key to decoding the musical score and the key to reading the instructions of DNA are the instruments and the RNA sequence.
But what is so special about
the Coronavirus RNA Sequence?
The Coronavirus is a viral RNA sequence. This means that it is less stable, and more prone to mutations. The superpower of this villainous virus to evolve faster makes it significantly harder for our heroic immune system to recognize and attack the enemy. The SARS-CoV-2 is the genome causing the spread of Covid-19. The RNA sequence has over 30,000 letters. Once the virus hijacks the living cells in our body, the Coronavirus injects a strand of RNA that has the SARS-CoV-2 genome. A new part has been added to the orchestra. A part that keeps traveling, a part that keeps changing, a part that can bring the whole orchestra down.
So what does
that part
sound
like ?
