Derek Cummings of UF has found that host immunity drives evolution of the dengue virus. The study used 1,944 blood samples from Bangkok that were preserved from people known to be ill with dengue. Cummings used antigenic cartography, which makes maps to visualize the relations between viruses.

“We have found that there is a pattern like influenza, where we get different viruses every year that are driven by natural selection for viruses that evade the human immune response to the population. We have shown that this is also happening with dengue,” said Cummings.

• Derek Cummings