How SARS-CoV-2 gets into respiratory tissue -- and how it may exploit one of our defenses

(Boston Children's Hospital) What makes SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, such a threat? A new study in the journal Cell, led by Jose Ordovas-Montanes, PhD at Boston Children's Hospital and Alex K. Shalek, PhD at MIT pinpoints the likely cell types the virus infects. Unexpectedly, it also shows that one of the body's main defenses against viral infections may actually help the virus infect those very cells.