There was just one problem: For the vast majority of bat species and tissue types, these cell lines did not exist. “Almost from that moment on, I decided to really dive into bat research.”Ahn joined the research team and prepared to begin exploring the bat immune system. To investigate the function of bat and human ASC2, researchers engineered different populations of human cells to stably express either bat ASC2 or human ASC2. —Thomas Zwaka, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount SinaiObtaining the correct bat cells turned out to be tricky, however. “When I started my PhD ten years ago, we knew about 1,200 bat species,” said Banerjee.

Source: New York Times March 15, 2024 07:41 UTC