Mystery solved: Scientists now know how smallpox kills
A team of researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, have solved a fundamental mystery about smallpox that has puzzled scientists long after the natural disease was eradicated by vaccination.: they know how it kills us. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), researchers describe how the virus cripples immune systems by attacking molecules made by our bodies to block viral replication. This discovery fills a major gap in the scientific understanding of pox diseases and lays the foundation for the development of antiviral treatments, should smallpox or related viruses re-emerge through accident, viral evolution, or terrorist action...