Scientists have uncovered how the HTLV-1 virus provokes a rare form of leukemia called adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma by transforming the host’s normal T lymphocytes into a malignant state. Comparing gene expression in T cells from virus-free donors, healthy carriers of the virus, and patients with ATL, the authors show the virus increases the expression of genes involved in cell proliferation, providing new therapeutic targets that can be drugged to halt the chronic activation of T cells.
You are a bona fide science buff if you know Julius Lothar Meyer (1830-1895) was the German chemist who discovered the periodicity of elements in the latter half of the 19th century, only to see the credit go to Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907).