Researchers at McGill University have discovered a process by which an organism’s natural anti-virus defenses can be enhanced. According to the research published in the journal Nature, the process effectively makes an organism’s cells immune to influenza and other viruses by knocking out two genes in mice that repress production of the protein interferon, the cell’s first line of defense against viruses. In the absence of these repressor genes, the mouse cells produced significantly higher levels of interferon, which effectively blocked viruses from reproducing.