2015-05262

A reaction paper on Our Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of The Cell

BBC’s documentary entitled Our Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of The Cell described how an
adenovirus invades cells. Furthermore, the body’s defenses against the virus were discussed, as
well as how viruses evade these mechanisms.

The documentary was very interesting for me because I only know about the basics on how virus
infects the cell, but upon watching this, I was able to know that more processes occur other than
the insertion of the virus’ genetic material in the nucleus and its proliferation aided by transcription
and translation. I did not know all the body’s line of defenses and that once the virus enters the
cell, it encounters many obstacles, such as the endosome, inability to independently utilize energy,
lack of movement mechanisms, proteasome, physical barriers, and more.

What I found very interesting is the virus’ ability to attach and control a motor protein. I never knew
that a virus is capable of such thing, and thus, made me curious on the mechanism of this
phenomenon. Also, the proteins that act as the cell’s internal immune system caught my attention,
because it was mentioned that it was a possible therapeutic target, which made me wonder if that
was indeed possible and if research on it was already done. The most amazing, yet also disturbing,
thing I learned after watching the documentary is that the human body has many lines of defenses
against viruses, and yet, the virus has also counter measures for evasion of all those defenses.
The questions “How did this non-living thing develop those counter measures for such complex
processes?” and also “How did researchers discover these things?”. As a result, it kind of made
me want to pursue research in this field.

As for the rating of the documentary itself, the whole documentary was not boring at all because,
aside from the interesting topic, the way that the processes were shown and discussed is very
entertaining and effective. It was as if you are watching an action-adventure movie; it was very
dramatic. The animation, though I’m not sure if it was 100% accurate, made the processes
exciting and easy to grasp. Moreover, the most of terminologies used were not that scientific, thus
making it easy for everyone to understand.

Every aspect of the documentary was just amazing because I learned many things, and at the
same time, I was greatly entertained. As the documentary filled the gaps of my knowledge in
viruses, it also introduced more gaps because I became more curious about the molecular
mechanisms involved and the processes involved in other types of virus and invaders. Finally, it
made me realize that the immune system is indeed fascinating, but the virus that evades it is even
more disturbingly fascinating.