Marshall Swearingen, MSU News Service

As more contagious and potentially lethal versions of the pandemic-causing coronavirus make headlines, Montana State University scientists have some good news: A local variant appears to undermine, not enhance, the pathogen's ability to overcome the human immune system.

As part of a global effort to monitor for mutations of the virus that could cause it to spread more easily or inflict more severe disease, the MSU team used cutting-edge technologies to identify and analyze a variant that circulated in Bozeman during the early months of the pandemic befo...