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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Another in a series focusing on viral characteristics, returning guest Luis Villarreal graces listeners with an in-depth and elegant collection of thoughts on how viruses behave. He shares a lifetime of knowledge, discussing
Luis Villarreal is a professor emeritus in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the University of California, Irvine, and is the founding director of The Center for Virus Research. He's spent the bulk of his career on virology. His fascination began when he came across an image of a crystalline array of an RNA virus in the cytoplasm of an infected cell. He was intrigued by the interface of life and chemistry and it struck him that all viruses existed in that interface. Therefore, when Richard asks if "viruses are living or nonliving," he verbalizes the answer in terms of this interface, emphasizing that viruses have always provided one of the more important or crucial aspects of communication into all living entities. This communication is essential in virus-host cell interaction.
The conversation continues in this same tenor, characterizing viruses as existing in dynamic relationships that determine virus evolution over time. He offers HIV as an example of addressing the seat of control with the host cell versus the virus. After HIV infection, other viruses in human cells started to reactivate because of this give-and-take control dynamic: there's no one controlling factor or outcome. Rather, it's all about biological strategies clashing. Stories about these clashes continue through the discussion, and he address the origin and evolution of viruses and how viruses persist with answers that take all elements of these dynamic relationships into account, including one example from a graduate school undiluted viral passage study. He found that the eventual defective virus that evolved, which was what might be termed "unfit," exerted tremendous control over the infective virus. Perhaps, he adds, we need to reimage how we apply evolutionary biology to viruses.
For examples of his work, find numerous listing in ResearchGate. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Gareth Brady specializes in how viruses and immune systems play hide and seek, evading or triggering various responses like inflammation. In this discussion, he adds precise and evocative information to Richard's virus investigation. He answers with an intriguing intensity, offering listeners key insights into the following:
Gareth Brady is the Ussher Assistant Professor in Clinical Medicine at Trinity College in Dublin. His current work is in the Translational Inflammation Research Group investigating viral structure and functions for inhibiting pathways to the immune response. He touches on multiple complex topics with ease, from viral entry mechanisms to viral spread and virus adaptation. He begins with an intriguing description of a particular virus he studies, which is a virus in the pox family tree called, Molluscum Contagiosum Virus (MCV). It's only able to infect humans and doesn't cause disease—this indicates it is very good at getting around the immune system. If he can understand how it evades the immune system, it may lead to valuable understandings of how to inhibit damaging inflammation.
He also explains virus behavior in such a way that listeners will gain solid insight into innate and adaptive immunity processes and the long chain of events that trigger symptoms we eventually experience from inflammation to fever. He then applies this explanation to how different viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), cause lung swelling that is so detrimental. He is able to take this lesson and expand listeners' understanding of how this process applies to virus latency, incubation periods, and coinfection. He describes the virus and immune response process as a cold war in an arms race. He comments that it's evolved to be complex because viruses have evolved to be more and more successful. In turn, viruses have forced humans to evolve multiple sensors to detect them. Furthermore, viruses have evolved multiple ways to get around these sensors and so one. Sit back and listen to this incredible journey through virus and human coevolution.
For more about his work see his working group page at Trinity: tcd.ie/medicine/thkc/research/inflammation.php. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Viral diseases in plants offer advantageous platforms for virology work, which is why returning guest Marilyn J. Roossinck pushed her research focus in their direction. Her knowledge of virus, plant, and fungus interactions adds depth to Richard's continued collection of expert views on virus functions and habits in preparation for his book. She discusses
Because plants are inexpensive, abundant, and easy to fit in a blender, they provide an excellent subject for virologists. Therefore, plant pathologist Marilyn J. Roossinck enlightens any attempt to understand virus behaviors. She's a professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at the Huck Institute of Life Sciences at Penn State University. After introducing her motivation for embracing this field, she helps Richard along his quest for a bigger picture of virus capabilities. Through examples of symptoms of viral diseases in plants and animals, she discusses topics like the percentage of our genome that was converted from retrovirus RNA; these genes insure mammalian survival, making placental development possible.
As she discusses human organisms as holobionts, listeners can get a much better understanding of the intricate beings we and all living organisms really are. For example, some fungal diseases in plants work with viruses for evolutionary adaptations such as the ability to survive heat. She mentions a virus discovered at Yellowstone that, if a fungus is present along with the virus, lends heat tolerance to certain plants. Similarly, the cholera bacteria in humans is only pathogenic when accompanied by a phage. In the midst of these interesting examples, she discusses her thoughts on virus mechanisms for entry and infection, viruses' ability to communicate or signal across cells, and the existence of "helper" viruses with different roles.
For more about her work, see The Roossinck Lab website and search her name in Google. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Paul Offit has been working in vaccine research for about forty years and listeners are lucky to hear a sampling of his knowledge of infectious viruses in this podcast. He offers another unique perspective of virus interactions from his vaccine research history. With humor and clarity, he discusses
Author, researcher, and pediatrician Paul Offit is the director of The Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician with the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's hospital of Philadelphia. Most recently, he authored Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. He's currently working on a biography of vaccinology specialist Maurice Hilleman and an article on the process for COVID-19 vaccine pros and cons and the prospects for a path to a safe vaccination. He offers answers to Richard's questions on virology from a different vantage point, often emphasizing the role the immune response process plays in determining virus behavior. Yet he still is intrigued by virus activity, noting the fascination he has with bacteriophages and their therapeutic potential.
His take on latency in different viruses is especially enlightening, and he discusses how herpes simplex is latent until some sort of stress weakens the immune system. He comments that its latent phase is fascinating as it has the ability to express some but not all proteins during the latent phase. He adds that it comes out of latency because of the host's immunological surveillance condition: the immune system keeps it from activating until the host's immunity decreases or is weak and the virus is able to cause symptom expression. He also explains virus behavior by articulating how the immunodeficiency virus evolved, mutating enough in the first infection to transmit to someone else and so on, all the while learning how to bind to that certain receptor and suppress the immune system and evade it by constantly changing the code protein, Therefore, HIV infection can mimic infection by a several different viruses at once, and in some ways exhibits the "perfect virus" process for survival. He also shares great insights into vaccination research, viral entry methods, and virulence factors in virus evolution. Listen in for an entertaining description of how our immune system handles viruses.
For more about Dr. Offit, see his website: paul-offit.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Professor Laura Mydlarz was fascinated with ocean life from a young age and now runs a marine biology lab at a university. After studying tropical ecosystems and coral reefs in college, she never looked back. She brings her explorations across the Caribbean to listeners and explains
Dr. Laura D. Mydlarz is a professor of biology and an associate dean of the College of Science at the University of Texas in Arlington. She shares her passion for ocean life with listeners and discusses the intricate and ancient immunity of coral reefs and their importance to ocean ecology. She notes that scientists often focus on the pathogen when consider coral disease treatment, but she focuses more on understanding what the host is doing to fight disease and studies coral immunity systems. She looks mainly at reactions to coral infectious diseases caused by bacteria, fungus and even some pathogenic viruses; corals face such pathogens just like humans.
However, she explains, corals are a much more ancient life form and they work with one type of immunity—innate—whereas humans can use innate and acquired immunity. However, their immunity is still much more complex than scientists thought. She describes this intricate immunity, one that must allow this other living organism, the symbiont algae, inside it without fighting it. Furthermore, the healthy algae is contributing a lot of resources and food to the coral and pathogens can affect both life forms, leading to coral reefs dying. They need all the energy they can get to mount an immune defense, and suffer when, for example, the symbiont is no longer able to photosynthesize because of the color changes from disease. She explains coral ecology in further detail and how issues like climate change play a role. Finally, she describes her more immediate goals, which include understanding the proper or healthy immune response of coral. Thus far, they've found interesting implications regarding mitochondrial defense systems and melanin presence.
To find out more, see her lab's website: themydlarzlab.com Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Author, athlete, and nutritionist Wade Lightheart joins the show to educate listeners on the best process for nutrient supplementation. He explains
Wade Lightheart is a three-time Canadian Natural Bodybuilding champion, author of numerous books on health, and president of BiOptimizer. He begins the show with a moving story relaying key events that led him to where he is today. After the death of his older sister, he became interested in offerings beyond the "medical model" he'd witnessed as his sister suffered through intense cancer treatments. That alongside his bodybuilding hobby led him to study nutrition and exercise science in university. But it wasn't until his own health dropped off a bit that he understood he'd been more focused on the aesthetics of bodybuilding than the importance of true health that stemmed from a focus on internal care.
He took this knowledge and after some intense study in nutritional supplement therapy, he and his partner started BiOptimizer, which evolved from a body building to a human optimization company. He describes for listeners the main premise of company, which addresses three aspects of biological optimization: aesthetics, performance, and health. They strive to end physical suffering and activate biologically optimized health by leveraging nutritional supplements, technology, and other elements to fully express each client's unique physical capacity and quality of life. He explains how the mode of production for a health supplement leads to a quality end product and what measures his company takes to insure this. He also explains the company's philosophy and inner workings in more detail. Listen in for more of this inspiring story about fitness and health.
For the best way to follow up and learn more, go to their website and find a special discount code for podcast listeners: bioptimizers.com/findinggenius/ Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Nathalie Gontier is a philosopher of science who specializes in evolutionary theory with a focus on viruses and immune system coevolution. This podcast adds a new angle to Richard's special series exploring viral spread and behavior in preparation for his book. She explores
Nathalie Gontier is the founder and director of the Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab at the University of Lisbon in Portugal. She's a returning guest and spends this discussion digging deeper into virus types, evolution, and behavior. She's very interested in viruses because they are one of most common parasites that every life form has to cope with. She studies how that interaction occurs and does this work alongside scientists to conceptualize this form of interaction with the hope of increasing our understanding. She establishes from the beginning that viruses do not exclude any form of life from their activity and live inside the cells of archaea, bacteria, and all eukaryotes.
She addresses COVID-19 directly, noting that it is way up in the food chain of the virus domain. She comments that it is amazing how one virus can spread and effect so many people quickly as we approach about one million dead from COVID-19 worldwide. Then she tackles some of Richard's tough questions regarding viruses, but gives answers quite different from previous guests with her science philosophy perspective. She has solid details to back up her answers, such as a study in Israel that proved quorum sensing and viruses' ability to communicate about whether to attack their biological host. She ends with an elegant description of their place in our human bio system. Listen in for some sharp discussion and commentary about viruses.
For more about her work, see the Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab page and find her YouTube channel. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0my
Lili Wang, Ph.D., has worked with viruses for 14 years and her latest focus is HIV. She's studying the amazing mechanics of the virological synapses of HIV, which allow the virus to transfer from infected to uninfected cell. But for this podcast, her job is to help Richard with his virus project, providing in-depth, enlightening answers to his questions. She discusses
Lili Wang, Ph.D. is a scientific researcher and instructor in the Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A member of the Benjamin Chen Laboratory, she's made solid progress in HIV research and continues her work in infectious disease microbiology. In this discussion, her virology background helps Richard grapple with his research questions with precise details of viral mechanics. She describes the coordinated manner with which viral cascades may work after cell entry and describes how evolution has continually refined these processes.
She provides substantive explanations for the trigger systems and how receptors work for these different forms of entry viruses take. Especially interesting is her description of the "not deliberate, but still not random" nature of viral actions, a key moment in this interview and why researchers grapple with how to categorize viruses in the alive/not alive debate. She adds information about how viruses might use sensing mechanisms and then pivots to more categories, comparing the actions and coevolution of bacteria and viruses and how plasmids and extracellular vesicles fit in this picture of microorganisms. Finally, she gives an overview of the tight combined forces of our own microbiomes and viruses, bacteria, and phages, how the balance of these organisms keep us healthy and can be considered part of our very life: if they are disturbed or out of balance, we become ill. Listen in for more about how viruses work to make us who we are.
For more information about her work, see her lab page and search for her in research aggregate sites. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
How do viruses hijack your body's cells? Why do they cause infectious disease in some people and not others, and what can they teach us about human biology? The COVID-19 situation is unprecedented, but the research questions it's triggered aren't the first of their kind. Tune in to discover:
With over 25 years' worth of research experience on the molecular biology of influenza viruses, Adolfo Garcia-Sastre is both a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. For Garcia-Sastre, studying viruses is a way of simplifying the study of more complex organisms, including humans.
"Most people think that…viruses are smart, and that they come with very smart mechanisms…I am one of the few scientists that believe the opposite; I think that viruses are extremely dumb…they are just what they are because that's what they've evolved to," he says. He continues by explaining why he's developed this uncommon understanding of viruses, hitting on a number of compelling topics along the way, including viral latency, virus virulence and the balance between infecting a host and keeping it alive, the transfer of genetic information in the evolution and adaptation of infectious viruses, and why he views the question, "Are viruses alive?" to be one of mere semantics. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Biologist Jeremy Bar studies the tri-partite symbioses formed between the bacteriophage, the bacterial hosts (prokaryotes), and the eukaryotic human cells. The human microbiota interact in all types of interdependencies from beneficial to harmful to somewhere in between. Dr. Barr offers a lively telling of what we've learned about bacteria and viruses as they make their way in the human microbiome.
He discusses
Jeremy Barr is the head of the Bacteriophage Biology Research Group and a lecturer at Monash University in Australia. This podcast continues the series of interviews with contributors to Richard's book on virus behaviors.
Dr. Barr begins with describing the beginnings of his biology interest as a kid obsessed with insects. When he studied biology in university, bacteriophages seemed to him as the insects of the microbiology world and he was hooked. His unique insight and fascination with lifecycle of bacteriophage lends an entertaining perspective to their discussion, such as a description of his favorite virus, the T4, using its threads to tap on a cell to perhaps sense its fitness for infection.
He also has been involved with numerous recent studies that speak directly to virus characteristics and will broaden listener's concept of what viruses are capable of. He discusses viruses ability to sense how dense the bacteria population is outside its host cell to maximize their reproductive success and know whether it is better to stay in the cell or lyse.
He addresses whether he thinks viruses should be considered alive, adding that they are arguably the most successful life forms on the planet and work at the most basal level of life. But, he comments, the argument whether they are or not really doesn't matter. They are everywhere, he says, transporting genetic material through space and time. Listen in to this dynamic conversation to hear more key moments in the bacteriophage life cycle.
Find out more about his work by visiting his lab website.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
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