This Week in Virology

TWiV 143: Live at ASV in Minneapolis

July 24, 2011

asv minneapolis Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Julie Overbaugh, and Stacey Schultz-Cherry

Vincent, Rich, Julie and Stacey recorded TWiV at the 30th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Virology in Minneapolis, where they discussed the role of neutralizing antibodies in protection against HIV-1 infection, and astroviruses, agents of gastroenteritis.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 143 (48 MB .mp3, 66 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies and risk of infant infection (J Virol)
Astrovirus increases epithelial barrier (J Virol)
Virology special reviews issue (open access)
Don Ganem interrupted by fire alarm at ASV (YouTube)
History of structural virology
ASV 2011 at Minneapolis
Photographs of TWiV at ASV
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 143

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – Iter – building a fusion reactor
Vincent – American girls sweep at Google science fair (NY Times)

Listener Pick of the Week

Jing – Bees by Rudolph Steiner

Send your virology questions and comments twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 142: Viral oinkotherapy

July 17, 2011

seneca valley virus Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Alan Dove

Vincent, Rich, and Alan discuss a method for identifying viruses of individual environmental bacteria, and the using a picornavirus for oncotherapy.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 142 (69 MB .mp3, 95 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Probing individual bacteria for their viruses (Science)
Looking in vivo at virus-bacterium interactions (ScienceDaily)
Integrated fluidic circuit (Fluidigm)
Oncotherapy with Seneca Valley Virus (Clin Cancer Res)
Epidemiology of Seneca Valley virus (pdf)
Senecavirus at ViralZone
Small cell lung cancer (NCBI)
ECOG performance status
RECIST
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 142

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Germlines podcast
Rich – science360
Vincent – Google+

Listener Pick of the Week

Angus – Science Weekly with Alok Jha

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 141: Mickey gets HCV

July 10, 2011

hcv mice Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, and Matt Evans

Matt Evans joins Vincent, Rich, Dickson, and Alan to deconstruct a mouse model for hepatitis C virus infection.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #141 (117 MB .mp3, 97 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Mouse model for HCV infection (Nature)
Commentary on HCV mouse model (Nature)
Matt Evans on the Wall Street Journal Report
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 141

Weekly Science Picks

Matt – Benezra letter to NIH (pdf); (NIH response and Nature commentary)
Dickson – The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman
Alan – Earth’s First Steps by Jerry MacDonald
Rich – Final space shuttle launch and NIAID paylines
Vincent – Hertog Global Strategy Initiative

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 140: An aptitude for microbicides

July 3, 2011

cd4 aptamer

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Judy Lieberman

Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Judy Lieberman review the use of CD4 aptamer-siRNA chimeras to inhibit HIV transmission.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #140 (110 MB .mp3, 92 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Inhibition of HIV transmission using CD4 aptamer-siRNA chimeras (J Clin Inves)
Stopping HIV transmission with a molecular barrier? (ScienceDaily)
An apt approach (Nat Med)
Smallpox immunization photos (Virus talk)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 140

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Inside insides
Rich – Rock stars of science
Vincent – A new open-access journal, and Francis Collins on NIH budget

Listener Pick of the Week

Kathy – Scientists and musicians compare notes (NPR)

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 139: Honey, I shrunk the virus

June 26, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Dickson Despommier

Vincent, Alan, and Dickson discuss the reduction in genome size of Mimivirus upon passage in amoeba, and analysis of the microbiome of honeybees.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #139 (96 MB .mp3, 80 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Mimivirus genome reduction after amoebal culture (PNAS)
Carbohydrate-Active enZYmes database
Analysis of the honey bee microbiome (PLoS One)
The colony-collapse blues (TWiV 104)
Blessed are the beekeepers (Wall Street Journal)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 139

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Life Before the Dinosaurs by ABC
Dickson – Inside Jokes by Matthew M. Hurley
Vincent – The Tree of Life by Jonathan Eisen

Listener Pick of the Week

Lance – A History of the World since 9/11 by Dominic Streatfeild

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 138: RISCy business with Raul Andino

June 19, 2011

Drosophila melanogaster Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Raul Andino

Vincent meets up with Raul Andino in San Francisco to discuss the RNAi-based antiviral defense system of Drosophila, the fruit fly, and how it is antagonized by viruses.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #138 (53 MB .mp3, 73 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Antiviral immunity in Drosophila requires RNAi spread (Nature)
Cricket paralysis virus antagonizes Argonaute 2 in Drosophila (Nature Struct Biol)
Dicistroviridae at ViralZone
TWiV on Facebook

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 137: Look what the dog dragged in

June 12, 2011

dog_human Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Dickson Despommier, Amit Kapoor, and Ian Lipkin

The TWiV team speaks with Amit Kapoor and Ian Lipkin about how they discovered canine hepacivirus, and its implications for the origin and evolution of hepatitis C virus.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #137 (69 MB .mp3, 96 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Characterization of canine hepacivirus (PNAS)
Humanized mouse model for HCV (EurekAlert!)
Summary of CHV study from Mailman School of Public Health
Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 137

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – What do marine mammals eat? (YouTube)
Rich – NIH rocket boys
Dickson – Cytomegalovirus needs an antiviral protein (Science)
Vincent – All pdfs free at National Academy of Science Press

Listener Pick of the Week

Adriana and Ye Jung – The man who was cured of AIDS (article one and two)

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 136: Exit XMRV

June 5, 2011

nude mouse Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Stephen Goff

Retrovirologist Stephen Goff joins Vincent, Rich, and Alan for a discussion of recent papers on the retrovirus XMRV and its association with chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #136 (61 MB .mp3, 84 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Recombinant origin of XMRV (Science Express)
No evidence of gammaretroviruses in XMRV-positive CFS patients (Science Express)
Editorial expression of concern (Science)
Absence of XMRV in CFS patients (J Virology)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 136

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
Rich – Trends in annual rates of death (pdf)
Stephen – Unexpected inheritance (PLoS Pathogens)
Vincent – Beyond the human eye

Listener Pick of the Week

Raihan – Bruce Aylward: How we’ll stop polio for good (YouTube)

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.

TWiV 135: Live in the Big Easy

May 29, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Roger Hendrix, Rachel Katzenellenbogen, and Harmit Malik

Vincent and guests Rachel Katzenellenbogen, Roger Hendrix, and Harmit Malik recorded TWiV #135 live at the 2011 ASM General Meeting in New Orleans, where they discussed transformation and oncogenesis by human papillomaviruses, the amazing collection of bacteriophages on the planet, and the evolution of genetic conflict between virus and host.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #135 (63 MB .mp3, 97 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Papillomavirus E6 proteins (Virology)
Diversity of mycobacteriophages (PLoS One)
Adaptive evolution of tetherin (J Virology)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 135
Video of this episode – view below

Weekly Science Picks

Roger – Atomic structure of adenovirus by cry0-EM (Science)
Harmit – Syncytin knockout mice show role for endogenous retroviral gene (PNAS)
Vincent – Free science, one paper at a time by David Dobbs