Virologist
| MEDICAL STAFF | |
  Virologist |
Access: Virology, Medbay, Mineral Storage Additional Access: Genetics Lab, Morgue, Operating Theatre, Chemistry, Cloning Lab Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Chief Medical Officer Duties: Study the effects of various diseases and synthesize a vaccine for them. Engineer beneficial viruses. Guides: Virology 101, Virology Recipes, Guide to medicine Quote: But it's a beneficial virus. I swear! |
As a research station, there are a lot of departments of research; the study of space viruses is one of those research departments! Congratulations doctor, you have been selected to study and treat various types of viruses, and create valuable vaccines. So grab your latex gloves and get your breath mask on and hole yourself up in Virology, it is time to perform some disease research.
Bare minimum requirements: If an epidemic breaks out aboard the station, don't be the source of it.
Welcome Doctor
Unlike Robert Nevile, you will not have a huge kick-ass adventure while making diseases. You will sit in your lab and likely fuck up constantly. Just make sure the Chemist or the Chief Medical Officer are around (and attentive) or you won't be able to cure uncommon diseases and might have an outbreak. Curing diseases is typically first done by chemists, but it's your job to turn cured blood into a vaccine, which is a much more effective treatment.
Infecting Monkeys
On paper, this is your job. Make a virus, inject a monkey, and record the results. Then cure the monkey.
If you're concerned about the monkeys and don't want to have a pen full of contagion conveniently sitting around, move a single monkey to one of your isolation rooms and treat/infect them there.
How to create vaccines:
- Take a blood sample from a cured subject.
- Inject the blood into any beaker.
- Insert the beaker into the Pandemic 2000.
- Select "create vaccine".
This gives you a bottle containing a few units of vaccine against that particular disease. As Chemistry to turn it into 0.5u pills, or do it yourself in the Holodeck.
You can also see the cure to a disease using your Pandemic machine (even if the virus has 2+ stealth), and reproduce it if there is an active culture in the blood, for whatever reason.
A MAN IN BRAZIL IS COUGHING!
Viruses can get loose on the station in many ways: random events, traitorous activity, and the most common way of all: your own incompetence. If you accidentally infect someone with a harmful virus, well, there is not much you can do except quarantine, treat, and ensure they aren't infectious before releasing them. Make sure only people that know exactly what they're doing can enter your room. Warn people beforehand that you're conducting experiments and remember to vaccinate yourself once you research a disease.
Symbiosis
Viruses don't always have to be something to be avoided. With a bit of work, you can engineer friendly viruses that come with a number of beneficial symptoms, such as eliminating the need to breathe, or even one that lets the body regenerate its own health when badly hurt. Just make sure you clear it with the CMO and let the station know what your friendly virus does before releasing it, or you might find yourself at the end of a pitchfork. Read this for a guide!
Tips
- Do not use sneeze or cough symptoms in beneficial viruses without neutering them. These are annoying and people will rush medbay to have it cured. They also make the virus appear negative on medical huds.
- A perfectly made virus blend from virology can heal you under certain conditions at a decent rate.
- A person can only be infected by one advanced virus at a time but can have up to six symptoms. In terms of beneficial viruses, there are several symptoms.
- If you actually do manage to make a beneficial virus and want to distribute it, have a superior vet it and ask them to announce it to the station via their desk.
- If you get a virus with unwanted symptoms, use your dropper set to transfer one unit of Synaptizine to your virus. Your 30 unit bottle will be good for a full 30 uses.
- A beneficial airborne virus with decent resistance stat will protect the crew from most of the bad viruses that may be spawned from people breathing miasma.
