Scientists find how deadly new virus infects human cells

Scientists have worked out how a deadly new virus which was unknown in humans until last year is able to infect human cells and cause severe, potentially fatal damage to the lungs. In one of the first detailed studies of the virus – which emerged in the Middle East and has so far infected 15 people worldwide, killing nine of them – Dutch researchers identified a cell surface protein it uses to enter and infect human cells. The finding, published in the journal Nature, came as the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the 15th case of the virus, known as novel coronavirus or NCoV, in a male patient in Saudi Arabia who died on March 2. Other cases have been in Jordan and Qatar, and in patients in Germany and Britain linked to travel in the Middle East. NCoV is from the same family of viruses as those that cause common colds and the...