This Week in Virology

Latest Episodes:

TWiV #13 - Top 10 virology stories of 2008 Dec 28, 2008

Show notes

Vincent and Alan talk about President-elect Obama’s choices for his science advisors, SARS sensationalism, a new enteric picornavirus, and the top 10 virology stories of 2008.

Obama’s science advisors (Yahoo story) CDC RSS feed on influenza PNAS paper on a new enteric picornavirus

TWiV’s top 10 virology stories of 2008:

1. Nobel Prize in Medicine to Montagnier, Barré-Sinoussi, and zur Hausen 2. AIDS elite controllers partly explained 3. Cancellation of PAVE HIV-1 vaccine trial 4. Gut homing receptor for HIV-1 5. New Ebola strain 6. New mosquito virus 7. How mosquitoes survive virus infection 8. Mouse model for Chikungunya 9. Genome sequences of 150 avian influenza virus strains 10. Understanding the RS virus vaccine failure

Science blog of the week: Aetiology Science podcast pick of the week: biobytes Science book of the week: Principles of Virology, 3rd Edition by Flint, Enquist, Racaniello, and Skalka.

TWiV #12 - Prions, lemur lentiviruses, RS virus vaccine, H5N1 Dec 21, 2008

Show notes

Vincent, Alan, and Angela discuss Kuru, prions in milk, ancient lentiviruses found in the chromosomes of lemurs, a respiratory syncytial virus vaccine failure in the 1960s, and recent outbreaks of H5N1 influenza in chickens.

Links for this episode:

D. Carleton Gajdusek obituary in the NY Times. We forgot to mention that he won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on Kuru.

PLoS Pathogens article on prions in sheep milk.

PNAS article on endogenous lemur lentivirus

Nature Medicine article on the failed respiratory syncytial virus vaccine.

December 18 was the 100th anniversary of the discovery of poliovirus.

Science podcast pick of the week: Skepticality.

Science book of the week: Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo by John Crewdson.

TWiV #11 - Elite controllers, mosquitoes, and winter vomiting Dec 13, 2008

Show notes

Vincent, Alan, and Jeremy discuss why certain AIDS patients, called ‘elite controllers’ or ‘long-term non-progressors’, do not develop disease, why mosquitoes infected with Sindbis virus remain healthy, and the continuing outbreaks of norovirus gastroenteritis.

Links for this episode:

Immunity article on elite controllers.

PNAS article on protected mosquitoes.

The word quarantine comes from the seventeenth century Venetian quarantena, which means forty day period.

Science podcast pick of the week: The Mr. Science Show

Science book of the week: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis. Click here to see a page from my Mother’s marked-up copy. She was a high school English teacher.

TWiV #10 - Bats, elephants, and AIDS Dec 04, 2008

Show notes

Vincent, DIck, and Alan chat about reconstruction of a bat SARS-like coronavirus, herpesviruses that are killing elephants in zoos, and a plan to eradicate AIDS in ten years.

Links for this episode:

The Virology Network at socialmedian.com.

The bat SARS-like coronavirus: scientific article in PNAS, and the Wired Science article.

NY Times Editorial on eradicating AIDS.

Herpesviruses killing elephants.

Science podcast pick of the week: Futures in Biotech.

Science book of the week: Principles of Molecular Virology, by AJ Cann.

TWiV #9 - Fever! The Discovery of Lassa Virus Nov 22, 2008

Show notes

Vincent and Dick recall the discovery of Lassa virus in Africa in 1969. A non-fictional account of the story, ‘Fever’, written by John G. Fuller and published in 1974, inspired Vincent to become a virologist. Part of the story took place at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (now Columbia University Medical Center), where both Vincent and Dick are employed. Dick remembers many of the key players in this medical drama.

Links for this episode:

Click here to view to cover of ‘Fever!’

Buy a used copy of ‘Fever!’ at Amazon.

Science podcast pick of the week: The Naked Scientists (iTunes link).

TWiV #8 - HIV resistance, Google flu, measles in Gibraltar, viral batteries Nov 14, 2008

Show notes

Vincent and Dick converse about warfare preventing immunization of 120,000 children in Afghanistan, bone marrow transplant curing AIDS patient, Google tracking flu, measles outbreak in Gibraltar, using viruses to make batteries, and small mosquitoes and Dengue.

Article on using viruses to make batteries (PubMed: Virus-enabled synthesis and assembly of nanowires for lithium ion battery electrodes).

Science podcast pick of the week: NY Times Science Times (iTunes link).

TWiV #7 - Viruses in video games Nov 07, 2008

Show notes

Vincent, Dick, and Aidan discuss how viral infections play prominent roles in notable video games. Three games are discussed: World of Warcraft, Pandemic II, and Bioshock.

An article on how World of Warcraft became a model for the transmission of virus infections was published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. The title of the article is “The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics.”

After we did the netcast we learned of a game for the iPhone called ‘Virus’. In this game your body is infected with a virus, and you must clear the infection by controlling white blood cells. The game is at the iTunes App store.

Science podcast pick of the week: MicrobiologyBytes.

TWiV is now part of Sciencepodcasters.

TWiV #6 - Latest outbreaks Oct 30, 2008

Show notes

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Dickson was at Pop!Tech last week.

Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

US Geological Survey Disease Maps.

CDC page on Hendra and Nipah viruses.

The flying fox (Google image search).

Vincent’s virology course.

Vincent’s texbook is Principles of Virology, third edition, ASM Press (available December 2008).