IFIH1 and infection: Within hours of infection, many pathogens induce specialized cellular proteins also known as pathogen-recognition receptors (PRRs) which include Toll-like receptors 3 and 7(TLR3 and TLR7) (Wang et al., 2004, 2006; Daffis et al., 2008a,b; Tsai et al., 2009), retinoic acid-inducible gene 1 (RIG-I) and melanoma differentiation associated gene 5 (MDA5) (Fredericksen et al., 2004, 2008; Chang et al., 2006; Fredericksen and Gale, 2006; Kato et al., 2006).