PIs are real People too: STD edition

We all know the risks that come with unprotected sex, but apparently, one of the until now unknown benefits is that it could get you a publication in Emerging Infectious Disease. And better yet (?), it could lead to an article about your sex life on Science's website.

According to a recent news update Science, Brian Foy and his graduate student were in Senegal doing research with mosquitoes, and upon returning to the US, Foy and his graduate student fell ill with a mysterious tropical disease. But not before Foy had a chance to be welcomed home by his wife... in the biblical sense…

Shortly after the two scientists fell ill, Foy’s wife began to show symptoms as well. Like any good scientist, Foy saved serum samples from all three patients. We at NRS know from our friend not_pwang's experience how critical saving your own snot can be. not_pwang has been known to save his own snot samples and sequence them later. Sadly, he came down with a newly discovered clade of rinovirus just months after it had been published. Let the experience of these two esteemed scientists guide you... don't be afraid save your serum or snot and sequence it. You never know if your illness holds the secret to a first author paper. And how much freezer space does a little bit of snot/serum take up anyway? Saving remnants of your illness is apparently totally normal and not at all gross.

Anyway, back to the important stuff, Foy used these samples to discover that he had somehow transmitted an insect born pathogen, Zika virus, to his wife, ostensibly by having sex with her. Or, as the paper puts it, “It is reasonable to suspect that infected semen may have passed from patient 1 to patient 3 during coitus.” No one else, including 1 and 3’s 4 children, became infected and the species of mosquito that transmit Zika virus do not exist in their home state.

Unfortunately, it appears that Foy's graduate student wasn't getting any, and therefore could not provide further evidence to support the sexual transmission theory. Fortunately for this poor overworked and undersexed grad student, there are journals willing to publish novel findings based exclusively on circumstantial evidence, and he got a paper with out having sex with anyone. He did accidentally serve as control group, but controls are for losers.

While this paper is the first report of possible sexual transmission of an insect borne disease in humans, perhaps what is more noteworthy is that it is also the first time where we can be sure that someone literally slept her way to authorship on the paper. Well, technically two of the authors did. Foy and his wife are both listed as authors on the paper... and since there would be no paper for either of them to be an author on if they hadn't had sex, evidence supports the theory that having sex was a prerequisite for authorship in this case. Thank god the human penis lost it's spikes, or maybe none of this would have happened.

So take note NRS readers, sleeping your way to the top is possible after all, but if you end up with an (insect borne) STD, don’t say we didn’t warn you.