EIF2AK2 and viral infectious disease: Specifically, in response to viral infection, healthy cells can activate the interferon-induced, double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase R (PKR) pathway, which inhibits protein translation and prevents the production of viral progeny, thus stopping the spread of the virus (Figure 1) (Meurs et al., 1990; Kaur et al., 2012; Kaufman et al., 2015).