Study details how dengue infection hits harder second time around

http://www.berkeley.edu/news2/2011/12/dengue.flv As part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI) 2010 Holiday Lectures on Science, UC Berkeley's Eva Harris talked about her work with scientists and clinicians in Nicaragua on dengue over the past two decades. Here, several partners in Nicaragua talk about the impact of this collaboration. Used with permission from HHMI , Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This video is available through the HHMI video library. One of the most vexing challenges in the battle against dengue virus, a mosquito-borne virus responsible for 50-100 million infections every year, is that getting infected once can put people at greater risk for a more severe infection down the road. Now, for the first time, an international team of researchers that includes experts from the University of California, Berkeley, has pulled apart the mechanism behind changing dengue virus genetics and dynamics of host immunity, and they are reporting their findings in the Dec.