by Merry Youle — Here's yet an­other tale of how a cun­ning virus has con­verted one of our an­tivi­ral de­fenses into a tool for its own pur­poses. The co-opted mech­a­nism is one used by cy­to­toxic T‑cells to kill virus-in­fected cells: the im­muno­log­i­cal synapse. More on this in a mo­ment. The virus is Hu­man T‑Lymphotropic Virus Type I (HTLV‑1). The ap­pro­pri­ated tac­tic…