The United States reached another solemn milestone this week. 500 thousand people have lost their lives to COVID-19.

This pandemic has drastically changed our world in ways no one could have imagined. And, every day it seems we are learning something new about the virus SARS-CoV-2. A critical component to all viruses is that they mutate. And, when they mutate they form a variant. When a virus constantly mutates, creating multiple variants, that can be a problem. There are now several mutations of SARS-CoV-2 circulating globally.

In this podcast, we sit down with one of Texas Biomed's leading virologists, Dr. Jean Patterson, to get a basic understanding of a variant. We discuss how variants are formed, the difference between a variant and a new strain and what needs to be done to stay ahead of these evolutionary changes of a virus.