Why rabies virus?
The rabies virus has 2 characteristics that make it an ideal “truck” for the delivery of molecular products to mammalian neural interiors. The first has to do with its legendary life cycle. Once inside a nerve cell, the virus sets up a manufacturing site to create more viruses, like any typical virus. At maturity, these progeny can jump to other neurons, spreading the virus along specific neural routes. If you could find a way to follow the virus, you could identify the routes. The second characteristic has to do with access to the CNS, which is a topic of great concern to researchers who are interested in drug delivery, for example. The rabies virus is not a respecter of neural borders. It can infect neurons in the peripheral nervous system and then jump the neurological border to enter the CNS. That is why a bite anywhere on the body can result in a catastrophic brain infection. By investigating how this transfer occurs at the molecular level, biologists can exploit the viral life cy
