It's Catching! The Infectious World of Germs and Microbes

It's Catching! The Infectious World of Germs and Microbes — page 3
Introduction I’m a Disease Detective (cid:43)(cid:76)(cid:15)(cid:3)(cid:80)(cid:92)(cid:3)(cid:81)(cid:68)(cid:80)(cid:72)(cid:3) (cid:76)(cid:86)(cid:3)(cid:45)(cid:72)(cid:81)(cid:81)(cid:76)(cid:73)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:15)(cid:3)(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:71)(cid:3) (cid:44)(cid:3)(cid:47)(cid:50)(cid:57)(cid:40)(cid:3)(cid:74)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:80)(cid:86)(cid:4)(cid:97) My name is Jennifer and I love germs No really I do But before you start thinking I’m a bit weird even though it’s true you should know that I DON’T love getting sick and feeling like a piano just fell on my head What I DO love is studying the wonderful world of microbes and figuring out how and why they make us sick I’m a disease detective When an outbreak of an infectious disease happens I’m on the scene I’ve spent over fifteen years studying the bacteria viruses and other bugs that make us sick learning what makes them dangerous how they spread from person to person and what sorts of tools can keep us healthy Just like a crime scene investigator I use evidence things like interviews fingerprints and DNA analysis to figure out what happened There are a few differences of course I don’t interview criminals Instead I talk to the people who got sick The fingerprints I analyze They’re not real human fingerprints they’re DNA fingerprints And the DNA I study doesn’t come from people it comes from germs like influenza measles and tuberculosis