This Week in Virology

Latest Episodes:

TWiV 220: Flu watches the clock while T7 gets a CAT scan Feb 17, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent, Rich, Alan, and Kathy discuss regulation of influenza virus replication by splicing, and the bacteriophage T7 random walk.

Links for this episode:

Influenza splicing regulates infection (Cell Reports)
Reporting on flu splicing from NPR, BBC, NBC
Splicing of influenza RNA 8 (jpg)
Bacteriophage T7 remodeling during infection (Science)
Cryo-ET of intact cells (Trends Cell Biol)
T7: The Movie (YouTube)
Cry0-EM vs Cryo-ET (Wikipedia)
Virus caught in the act (e! Science News)
Letters read on TWiV 220

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy - Journal of Virology Image GalleryRich - Phage T7 Genetics and Physiology and slab gelsAlan - PeerJ (press release)Vincent - Virologia en Español

Listener Pick of the Week

Dave - Thingiverse pathogens and proteins

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 219: Fauci pharmacy Feb 10, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Anthony S. Fauci

Vincent and Rich meet up with Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Links for this episode:

Fauci history (J Clin Inves)
Fauci Pharmacy
Anthony Fauci (Wikipedia)
Anthony Fauci: Unfinished business (Lens)

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 218: Monkeys turning valves and pushing buttons Feb 03, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Welkin Johnson

Vincent, Alan, and Welkin discuss how endogenous retroviruses in mice are held in check by the immune response.

Links for this episode:

Kuan-Teh Jeang, 54
Resurrection of ERVs (Nature)
Toll-like receptors control ERVs (Immunity)
Retroviral danger from within (Immunity)
Ancient viruses wreak havoc (The Scientist)
Letters read on TWiV 218

Weekly Science Picks

Welkin - Viruses: Essential Agents of Life (review at STC)Alan - Infinity ImaginedVincent - Spaceship built for son

Listener Pick of the Week

Amanda - Written? Kitten!Kevin - Protein synthesis: An epic (YouTube)Daria - The Baltimore Scheme

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 217: I just flu in and my arms are shot Jan 26, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Dickson Despommier

Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Dickson review influenza vaccines.

Links for this episode:

FDA licensed flu vaccines
Seasonal influenza vaccine distributed
How flu vaccine strains are selected (one, two)
WHO report on flu vaccine strain selection (pdf)
Derek Smith on antigenic mapping
Salk's 1945 influenza vaccine
TIV preparation: Fluzone, Agriflu, Fluvirin, Fluarix, Flulaval, Afluria (pdfs)
LAIV preparation (pdf)
Efficacy of flu vaccine 2012-13 (MMWR, virology blog)
Meta-analysis of flu vaccine efficacy (Lancet)
Two new flu vaccines FDA approved
Flublok
Flublok clinical trial
Pandemrix and narcolepsy (Yahoo, PLoS One, PLoS One)
CIDRAP analysis of flu vaccines
Letters read on TWiV 217

Weekly Science Picks

Rich - Repoopulate (original article), Robogut (new clinical trial)Alan - WTF, Evolution?Dickson - The Beauty and Benefits of ScienceVincent - Supercomputing modeling of poliovirus

Listener Pick of the Week

Bjorn, Marshall, Meaghan - Glass sculptures of Luke Jerram

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 216: Processing VIRALGUUAACACCAGRNA Jan 20, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy resume the virology 101 series with a discussion of RNA capping, splicing, and export.

Links for this episode:

Slides for this episode (pdf)
Spliced Ad 2 late mRNAs (Cell)
An amazing sequence arrangement (Cell)
Adenovirus late mRNA undecanucleotide (Cell)
Aaron Shatkin, 72 (virology blog)
Schrödinger's cat (Wikipedia)
Letters read on TWiV 216

Weekly Science Picks

Rich - Linus Pauling's explanation of science (YouTube)Alan - Underwater experimentsKathy - I'm a virus (YouTube)Vincent - Stem cells (Bizarro Comics)

Listener Pick of the Week

Tom - The President's AnalystDanielle - Overly honest methods (HuffPost and ASBMB Today)

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 215: Illuminating rabies and unwrapping a SARI Jan 13, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent, Alan, and Kathy review the finding that rabies virus infection alters but does not kill neurons, and provide an update on the novel coronavirus in the Middle East.

Links for this episode:

Neuronal survival after rabies virus infection (PLoS Path)
Clusters of coronavirus cases (Nature)
ProMedMail on novel coronavirus
Novel coronavirus outbreak news (Int J Inf Dis)
Genomic characterization of novel coronavirus (mBio)
Broad cell tropism of novel coronavirus (mBio)
Are viruses alive? (poll at virology blog)
Antibodies taken up by endocytosis (PNAS)
Antibody eliminates alphaviruses from neurons (Science)
Image: Virus in the garden by Helen Hache
Letters read on TWiV 215

Weekly Science Picks

Alan - I'm a Scientist - The FilmKathy - Humorous units of measurement (Wikipedia)Vincent - Open access must enable open use (Nature)

Listener Pick of the Week

Tarwin - Plague Inc.

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 214: This is your brain on polyomavirus Jan 07, 2013

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent, Alan, and Kathy discuss how coagulation factor X binding to adenovirus activates the innate immune system, and a novel polyomavirus associated with brain tumors in raccoons.

Links for this episode:

Coagulation factor X activates innate immunity to adenovirus (Science)
A decorated virus cannot hide (Science)
Reflecting on goals for Science
Polyomavirus associated with raccoon brain tumors (EID)
MPNST
Moore tumor viruses - TWiV 160
Treating CLL with lentivirus vectors (NEJM)
Letters read on TWiV 214

Weekly Science Picks

Alan - Parasite of the DayKathy - Tour of International Space Station Vincent - Earth as Art

Listener Pick of the Week

Robin - Angell on Big PharmaMichael - Flu jokesJim - Database of Ted talks; Downloadable Ted Talks

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 213: Not bad for a hobby Dec 30, 2012

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

In their final episode of the year, the TWiV team reviews twelve cool virology stories from 2012.

Twelve virology stories from 2012:

H5N1 (TWiV 190, 182, 177, 173, 168)
Polymorphisms that control susceptibility (TWiV 175, 180)
New virus receptors (TWiV 166, 210)
XMRV: Last nail in the coffin (TWiV special)
Polio eradication troubles in Pakistan (NY Times one, two, three; virology blog)
Biomedical research crisis (TWiV 208, 184, 189, 194)
Polydnaviruses in parasitoid wasps (TWiV 179)
Carolyn Coyne’s placental barrier story (TWiV 193)
Touring NEIDL (TWiV 200)
Epidemiology (TWiV 169, 178)
A good year for virus hunting (173, 183, 195, 196, 198, 199, 204)
Pox accordion (TWiV 198)

Links for this episode:

US plans for H5N1 research (ScienceInsider)
FDA recommends against Ampligen
Rituximab and CFS (PLoS One)
No evidence for XMRV in prostate cancer (PLoS One)
Retraction of XMRV prostate cancer paper (Retraction Watch)
Gender bias among science faculty (PNAS)
NEIDL risk assessment
Virology 101 at TWiV
Letters read on TWiV 213

Weekly Science Picks

Rich - Our Mr. Sun (IMDB entry) (wiki)Alan - PubReader from NCBI announcement and instructionsKathy - Popular Mechanics 110 picks for the next 110 years Vincent - 366 days: Nature's 10

Listener Pick of the Week

Matt - The flu vaccine controversy

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV Special: Ignorance with Stuart Firestein Dec 29, 2012

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Stuart Firestein

Vincent and Stuart discuss why ignorance - all of what we don't know, and even what we don't know we don't know - is the driving force of science.

Links for this episode:

Ignorance: How it drives Science by Stuart Firestein
Ignorance website

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@twiv.tv

TWiV 212: Apocalypse TWiV 122112 212 Dec 24, 2012

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

The TWiVerers answer listener email about genetically modified chickens, a hendra vaccine for horses, online education, curing color blindness, Roosevelt and polio, Th cells, and much more.

Links for this episode: