Ashley Sande

Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft

Adeline Discovers the Virus

Adeline woke up to the sound of her sister’s coughing from across the hall. It was six o’clock

in the morning, an hour before she had to get up for school, and she was really worried about

Kristy. Kristy had come home sick from school the day before and couldn’t eat her dinner last

night because she had a terrible sore throat. Adeline’s father had told her last night that her sister

would probably have to see a doctor today, so when she heard the car start outside, she

immediately jumped out of bed to get dressed.

“Your sister’s fever is very high,” Addy’s father told her as she came down the stairs. “We

are going to take her to the ER just to be safe. Do you want to come?”

“Yes, I’ll be right there,” Addy replied surely.

Adeline, who had just recently turned twelve, was about as curious as curious gets. While

part of her wanted to go to the hospital to keep her little sister company, the other part of her

sought to go simply because she loved the doctor’s office. Although this was an unpopular

opinion among kids her age, Adeline could never understand why. She found the doctor’s office,

along with science and medicine, captivating. From the first time she went in to get a flu shot,

Addy was sure she wanted to be a doctor. Today she was especially curious about seeing a

doctor because her dad had mentioned a medical term she had never heard before. He told her

that Kristy had a virus.

Addy thought about the word virus the entire car ride to the ER. What was a virus? How did

Kristy get one? It seemed like Kristy just had a normal cold, what made their dad think there was

something else wrong with her? Addy’s stomach then briefly filled with excitement as the

thought of having the chance to ask a real doctor all of these questions entered her mind.
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Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
When they arrived at the emergency room, Addy helped her sister out of the car and walked

her into the building. While their parents filled out paperwork, Addy grabbed a cup of water and

some tissues for her sister. Kristy’s cough had gotten worse on the drive over and now her nose

was running like crazy. Addy asked for some cold towels for Kristy to put to her forehead

because her fever was getting worse. She still couldn’t understand what her dad had been talking

about. All of Kristy’s symptoms seemed like severe cold symptoms, and while they were bad,

there was nothing virus-y about them at all. Just wait for the doctor, they’ll explain everything,

Addy told herself.

The nurses took Kristy into a room where they gave her liquids through an IV to help lower

her fever, and told her to get some rest while she waited for the doctor to come. When the doctor

arrived, she introduced herself as Dr. Ally Shepard and got straight to Kristy’s check-up. This

took no time at all and soon she had her prognosis.

“Looks like you’ve got a nasty virus, Kristy. Don’t worry, its nothing some more liquids and

rest can’t fix. We’ll keep you here for a little while longer until you’re fever breaks, and then

you’re good to go. I’m sorry sweetheart, I hope you feel better.”

“So she does have a virus?” Addy blurted out a little louder than she’d meant to. She had

been holding back bombarding Dr. Shepard with questions from the second she arrived that

Addy’s curiosity got the best of her. “You mean my sister doesn’t just have a cold? I’m sorry,

it’s just that a lot of people have used the word virus, but I’m not sure I know what it means?”

Dr. Shepard turned to check the clock and then to Addy. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “My

break starts right now. If your parents don’t mind, I can take you to the lab while your sister rests

and I can try to explain viruses to you. How does that sound?”
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Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
Addy could hardly contain her excitement. “Really? I would love that! Mom, Dad, can I

please go?”

“Of course, just don’t take too long.”

“Alright then, let’s hurry,” Dr. Shepard stated enthusiastically as she lead Adeline out of the

room.

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Addy had never seen anything like the hospital’s lab before. There were microscopes at

every corner with researchers in pristine white labs coats seated at almost every one of them.

Fume hoods, water tanks, and beakers filled with chemicals lined the counters. Adeline pictured

herself one day knowing what each of these apparatuses and chemicals did. The arguably most

interesting part of the lab, however, was a giant sphere-shaped device that sat neatly in one of the

far corners.

“What’s that?” Addy asked as Dr. Shepard walked them towards the strange object. She

could now see that its exterior was made of glass, and that a single seat sat in the middle.

Dr. Shepard responded with a sense of pride in her voice that Addy immediately sensed

meant value. “We call this the Orb. It is a one of a kind apparatus that allows you to see what is

going on inside the human body. When you sit inside and put on these glasses, you will feel as

though you are in the human body, moving around wherever I choose to send you from the

computer.”
Ashley Sande
Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
Dr. Shepard passed a pair of big clunky looking glasses to Addy. She then walked over

towards a computer and put on a headset as Addy took a seat in the Orb. “Ok, are you ready? Put

on the glasses, and I’ll explain everything from there.”

Addy felt as if she was in a virtual reality game the second she put on the glasses. She

couldn’t believe her eyes. She was inside of a living cell. She could see all sorts of little

molecules moving around her, completing the jobs a cell does to stay alive. She immediately

noticed a group of molecules to her left enter the cell together, but one of the molecules looked

different. This molecule resembled an insect-like figure with a large circle head sitting tall on top

of eight tiny sprawling legs. Its eerie appearance and maneuvers gave Addy the goosebumps.

“Alright Adeline, I’m guessing you can see the virus, right? It’s the oddly-shaped molecule

that just entered through the cell membrane.”

“Yes, I can see it,” Addy replied, hoping there was more explanation to follow.

“Okay, perfect. Let’s begin. So a virus, like the one you see, is a very hard thing to explain

Addy, because it acts very similar to a living organism but technically isn’t alive. I’ll start off

with the basics, which is that the common cold you’ve experienced before and Kristy has now, is

simply your body suffering from an intruding virus like the molecule you see in front of you. The

word virus might be new to you, but the concept is not. It’s simply a molecule that travels from

person to person making them sick, in your sister’s case with a cold.”

Addy was relieved to hear her sister had nothing more than a normal cold. She watched as

the virus started to unravel itself and move around inside the cell. As it did, she noticed the virus

had two parts; an outside shell that made up the insect-looking shape, and coils of long strands
Ashley Sande
Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
bunched up inside what looked like the “head” of the virus. She also noticed the virus behaving

strangely.

“Dr. Shepard, what’s the virus doing? It looks like it is breaking apart. Does that mean the

human cell is destroying it and fighting off the sickness?”

“Actually, the opposite,” Dr. Shepard replied. “Remember how I said a virus technically isn’t

alive like you and me? That’s because, in order for something to be living it must reproduce on

its own or make more copies of itself to pass its genes onto. Humans have kids onto whom they

pass their genes. Human cells, like the one you are inside, divide to create more cells with the

same DNA, or genes, inside them. This makes humans living organisms. Virus molecules cannot

do this and therefore, are not living. Is this making any sense?”

“Sort of.” Adeline replied, “So the cell that I’m inside will eventually split into two cells that

are the exactly the same, so that its genes can be passed on?”

“Exactly. And then those cells will split into more cells and so on for your entire life. This is

how all living things operate and why you are alive.”

Addy found this fascinating. She continued watching the virus break its exterior shell apart

and the long strands move around inside the cell. She was still having a hard time grasping the

concept of what the virus was if it wasn’t a living thing. “So the virus is nothing more than just

this one molecule inside one cell in the human body. How can one molecule make us sick,

especially if breaks apart so easily the second it gets inside the cell?”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” Dr. Shepard responded. “Even though a virus can’t

make copies of itself on its own, it can with the help of the living cell you are standing in. This is
Ashley Sande
Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
the viruses goal and the reason it came into the human body. It wants to survive and to do so it

needs to be stronger, which means making more of itself.”

“What do you mean?”

Dr. Shepard tried to think of the best way to explain this. “Aha!” she exclaimed. “Addy have

you ever seen Star Wars?”

“Yes.”

“Well okay, so you can think of the virus in front of you like a stormtrooper. The more

stormtroopers there are, the more powerful the army is. And the way to get more stormtroopers is

by making clones. So a virus needs to make clones of itself to get stronger.”

“But if it isn’t living, how does it do that?” Addy asked as the virus continued to break apart.

“That’s exactly what you’re seeing right now. In order for the virus to clone itself, it needs to

copy its DNA. You can think of the virus’ DNA as instructions for how to build itself. I’m sure

you’ve heard people tell you before that your DNA is specific to only you, right? Your DNA is

what makes you different from everybody else and is basically a blueprint of you. The same goes

for the virus. Those long strands you see unraveling and wandering around the cell that came

from the center of the virus make up the entirety of its DNA. To copy these strands, the virus

needs two things it doesn’t have that a living cell does; ATP and nucleotides.”

“What do those do?” Addy asked excitedly. If she had still been sitting, she would be at the

edge of her seat, but her excitement had brought her to her feet, practically jumping. She hoped

her standing wouldn’t affect the orb.

Ashley Sande
Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
“ATP is basically the energy that fuels cells and cell processes. Everything you see going on

around you inside this cell is happening because of ATP. Nucleotides, on the other hand are the

building blocks of DNA. They are little pieces that get put together using the energy from ATP

and form DNA strands. If you look around, you can see nucleotides floating everywhere.”

Addy gazed left and right, and suddenly she noticed them. It was amazing! These small

nucleotides were everywhere inside the cell, appearing exactly like cutout pieces of the DNA

strands. Many of the nucleotides were moving towards one of the strands of virus DNA, and

Addy could see another strand forming. The nucleotides were being put together like pieces of a

puzzle to make a copy of the virus’ DNA. In no time at all, this new strand finished forming and

there were now two identical strands of DNA wiggling through the cell.

“So what happens now that the virus has its DNA copied?” Addy asked. “Doesn’t it need

more shells to fit all that DNA back into?”

Dr. Shepard smiled from behind her computer. “You’re exactly right, Addy. The virus does

need more shells to hold its DNA. To make these new shells, its going to rely on another thing

the human cell has that it does not: a ribosome. Look over to your left, Addy. Do you see that

that floating shape that looks like a blob?”

Addy turned and could see it. The ribosome looked like two blobs stuck together, a large one

on top of a small one. “Yes I see it. How does that help the virus build its shell?”

“The virus’ shell is made up of proteins, specific proteins that the virus’ DNA codes for.

Remember how we said the DNA strands were like instructions to building the virus? Well the

ribosome reads the instructions from the DNA strands and uses them to build the shell. Each
Ashley Sande
Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
segment of the DNA strands is a code for a certain protein. By bringing in these proteins and

assembling them together, the ribosome creates a new shell for the virus.”

Addy watched as strands of the virus DNA went through the ribosome and as proteins were

brought in and put together to form new outer shells for the virus. It reminded of her of an

assembly line factory, the way everything was done so efficiently. The end product was several

insect-shaped protein shells.

“Now that the DNA is copied and the shells are made, the two parts of the virus will self-

assemble, or come together on their own to make new fully functioning viruses,” Dr. Shepard

explained.

Addy watched in awe as the copied strands of DNA stuffed into the protein shells and new

viruses were formed. She observed as this new pack of viruses started to migrate towards the

edge of the cell. They started to push against the cell membrane very forcefully when all of a

sudden the cell burst open.

“What just happened?!” Addy exclaimed. “The cell just exploded!”

Addy wasn’t sure what would happen next. After all, Dr. Shepard had told her the Orb was

designed to take you inside a human cell, and that cell had exploded. All she could see now was

a black abyss.

Then something appeared. Addy quickly identified it as another cell, but instead of being

inside this cell, she was looking at it from the outside. This view also gave Addy sight of the

group of viruses, having just broken out of the previous cell, swimming rapidly towards this new

cell. As they reached the outer membrane of the cell, the viruses disguised themselves amongst a

group of food molecules entering the cell, and one by one were taken inside the new cell.
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Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
Adeline knew what the cell did not; it had just been invaded, and soon it would be destroyed.

“Oh no,” were the only words she managed to mutter.

Dr. Shepard’s voice resonated through the Orb once again, “Addy, I think you are starting to

figure out how viruses affect the body. You asked earlier how one virus molecule could make us

sick, but now you can see that it is not one molecule for long. That one virus replicates and as it

leaves the cell with its new army of clones, it destroys it. The virus, now a group of viruses, then

starts to attack neighboring cells doing the exact same thing. Soon its army will consist of

millions of virus molecules, and your body will try to fight them off, making you sick.”

The thought of her cells exploding every time she got sick was a little gruesome for Addy

to picture. She wondered how the body was able to fight off such vicious intruders every time

she got a cold. She also wondered how cells exploding, which she now characterized as being

sick, caused her sister to have a fever, cough, and runny nose.

“Dr. Shepard, why is it the virus makes us feel sick? When it destroys our cells, is that what

gives us a fever and cough?

“I’m so glad you asked that Addy, because a lot of people, even adults, don’t understand this.

The symptoms you experience when you are sick, aren’t caused by the virus. They are your

body’s way of trying to kill the virus. Let me show you.”

The scene around Adeline quickly changed. She was no longer looking at a cell, but instead

was inside what appeared to be the human throat. The pink walls of the throat were coated with a

slimy substance, and as Dr. Shepard began to speak, the pink color turned more and more red as

these walls started to swell up making the throat smaller.

Ashley Sande
Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
“The slimy coating on the walls of the throat are mucus membranes Addy, and as the virus

infects these membranes, your immune system, which is made up of your white blood cells,

sends blood rushing to these areas in order to fight off the virus. That is why the throat becomes

inflamed and red like you see which makes it sore and causes a cough. The body also tries to get

rid of the infected mucus membranes by draining them through your nose. This is why you

sneeze and why your nose runs. ”

“So Kristy’s immune system is what kept me up all night, not the actual virus,” Adeline

retorted jokingly.

Dr. Shepard laughed. “I’m afraid so.”

“And her fever, what’s causing that?”

“The fever is another weapon her body is using to kill the virus. You see, when your body

heats up, it slows down the virus and speeds up your immune system at the same time. Kind of

convenient, don’t you think?”

Incredible rather, Addy thought.

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As Dr. Shepard unhooked the Orb and put the glasses away, Adeline tried to ponder

everything she had just seen. She was spellbound, still in awe of what she had witnessed.

Viruses, proteins, DNA, mucus membranes. How would she ever explain all of this to her

parents and sister? Learning about them was one thing, but seeing them up close was another.

She couldn’t thank Dr. Shepard enough.

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Honors 205 – Inquiry Paper #2 Final Draft
“It was my pleasure Addy. I’m sorry I didn’t have more time to show you around, but I hope

I still managed to answer most of your questions.”

“Yes, yes,” Addy assured her, partly fibbing. While Dr. Shepard had answered most of her

questions, Addy now had hundreds more.

When they returned to Kristy’s room, Adeline’s parents were packing up, and Kristy was just

getting out of the bed. Her fever had broken and they were preparing to go home now.

“Mom and Dad said you went to the doctor’s lab. What took you so long?” she asked Addy.

“Did you become a doctor or something while I was asleep?”

Addy shrugged her shoulders and blushed, barely containing herself. The truth was, after

everything she just learned about viruses, she almost felt like a doctor.