Viral Placenta
Color Pencil on Paper, Digital (Procreate)
2024

“If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.
In 2000, a team of Boston scientists discovered a peculiar gene in the human genome. It encoded a protein made only by cells in the placenta. They called it syncytin. …What made syncytin peculiar was that it was not a human gene. It bore all the hallmarks of a gene from a virus.”

Self-initiated editorial project on Articles:
NatGeo article by Carl Zimmer
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mammals-made-by-viruses
Polytechnique Insights article by Tania Louis
https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/columns/health-and-biotech/the-placenta-a-legacy-inherited-from-ancient-viruses/