Another Greek letter has entered the vernacular. In late November, the World Health Organization designated SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.529 a variant of concern and dubbed it “omicron.”
The new variant, which is more heavily mutated than its predecessors, was detected thanks to scientists in southern Africa who have set up a robust system for sequencing coronavirus samples. The data got out to the global scientific community right away courtesy of the open science infrastructure that has helped the world respond speedily throughout the pandemic.
Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who are experts in viral evolution, immunology and epidemiology are among the researchers worldwide taking a look at this new variant to learn how it might affect us. On Twitter and in the media, they’ve shared some of what we currently know about omicron, and what key questions we still need to answer.
Omicron’s genome is more mutated than that of other coronavirus variants, and many of these changes are in the code for the virus’s spike protein. The spike is the key that allows the virus to gain entry to human cells and the target that our current vaccines train our immune systems to recognize.
