For the first TWiV of 2020 we reveal that microbiome depletion with antibiotics alters the immune response to influenza vaccine, and how successive blood meals facilitate virus dissemination in mosquitoes and transmission potential.

Vincent speaks with members of Prometheus, a team of academic and industrial scientists assembled to develop antibody-based therapeutics against infections caused by tick-borne Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and rodent-borne hantaviruses, for which no approved vaccines or specific drugs are available.

From the Fourth Symposium on Giant Virus Biology in Germany, Vincent, Rich, and Nels speak with Assaf, Stephen, and Alexandra about their careers and their work on giant viruses that infect ocean hosts: Emiliana huxleyi, Aureococcus anophagefferans, and a choanoflagellate.

William Summers joins the TWiV team to discuss some virology history, including the ever-changing concept of ‘virus’ and the contribution of phage research to the study of animal viruses

Amy joins the TWiV team to review evidence that enterovirus D68 is an etiologic agent of childhood paralysis, and her finding that the ability of the virus to infect cells of the nervous system is not a recently acquired property.

The League of Extraordinary Virologists celebrate the eradication of wild poliovirus type 3, and consider the effectiveness of an influenza vaccine produced in insect cells, and how small RNAs are protecting the Koala germline from retroviral invasion.

At Aarhus University in Denmark, Vincent speaks with Trine Mogensen, Søren Paludan, Ole Søgaard, and Madalina Carter-Timofte about their careers and their work on sensing herpesviral DNA, immunodeficiencies that predispose to severe viral infections, and the path to a cure for HIV/AIDS.