TXBiobytes from Texas Biomed

TXBiobytes from Texas Biomed


TX Biobytes from Texas Biomed Episode 052— Understanding Variants

February 25, 2021

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.