My vision is to predict an epidemic before it breaks out, by studying the jumps of viruses from animals to humans

This is how Dr. Adi Stern describes, who completed a doctorate at Tel Aviv University and a post-doctorate at the Weizmann Institute, one of the winners of the UNESCO-L'Oréal Prize for Women in Science who is moving on to a post-doctorate at Berkeley

In about a month, Dr. Adi Stern will travel to the University of Berkeley to investigate, in a unique collaboration between laboratories at UC Berkeley and UCSF, the topic of the transfer of viruses from animals to humans.
Dr. Stern is one of the three winners of the UNESCO-L'Oréal Prize for Women in Science for 2011. Two years ago she completed her doctorate with Prof. Tal Popko at Tel Aviv University, where she studied the evolution of viruses. "R. Rotem Shurk at the Weizmann Institute - where she researches viruses that prey on bacteria, the well-known as bacteriophages. "The common denominator in all the studies so far has been the relationship between pathogens - the causes of the disease and their hosts, i.e. those who catch the disease," explains Dr. Stern.

In the laboratory of Prof. Raul Andino from USCF and Prof. Rasmus Nielsen, from Berkeley, she will examine the jump of viruses between animals and humans: "The famous examples of such jumps were swine flu, bird flu and HIV - a virus that jumped from monkeys to humans. These jumps They are very dangerous because they have the potential to cause epidemics, because our immune system does not recognize this virus Schematically, the viral diseases are those that the immune system has known for many years, and those that have made a "jump" from animals to humans. In the case of "ancient" viruses, the human and the virus live together for hundreds, thousands or millions of years of evolution and then the immune system usually knows how to cope -Evolution."

"When a jump is made. The jump is characterized by a series of mutations that apply to the DNA or RNA of the virus (depending on the type of virus). My goal is to investigate what changes are required of a virus in order to make such a jump and to deal with them. My vision is to identify a viral epidemic that breaks out in animals and to understand when it might affect humans and thus prevent an epidemic before it happens. To be able to do such research I want to study the past examples, what happened with viruses that did the This leap, understanding what changes are required and learning how to predict them."

"One of the characteristics that are recognized today is RNA viruses, and the reason for this is that these are viruses with a very high mutation rate, which allows them to change and potentially facilitates the transition from animal to animal."