This Week in Virology

TWiV Special: A paradigm for pathogen de-discovery

September 18, 2012

XMRV Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and W. Ian Lipkin

Vincent and Ian review a multicenter blinded analysis which finds no association between chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis and XMRV or polytropic murine leukemia virus.

Click the arrow to play, or right-click to download TWiV Special XMRV (53 MB .mp3, 44 min)

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Links for this episode:

Transcript of this episode (pdf)
Multicenter blinded analysis of CFS and XMRV/pMLV (mBio)
Press release on multicenter study (pdf)
Press conference webcast
TWiV on Facebook

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 199: Of mice, ticks, and pigs

September 16, 2012

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

Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy discuss recent outbreaks of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in Yosemite National Park and novel swine-origin influenza in the US midwest, and isolation of the Heartland virus from two patients in Missouri with severe febrile illness.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 199 (73 MB .mp3, 101 minutes).

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Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Insane in the Chromatophores (Vimeo)
Rich – Golden Goose Awards
Kathy – Euler’s Disk (YouTube)
Vincent – Ignorance: How it Drives Science by Stuart Firestein

Listener Pick of the Week

Adam – Leigh Van Valen

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 198: Pox has got a squeeze-box, seals are gonna sneeze all night

September 2, 2012

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

Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy review fatal avian influenza virus in harbor seals, and poxvirus deployment of genomic accordions to counter antiviral defenses.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 198 (71 MB .mp3, 99 minutes).

There once was a virus named pox
Whose genome contained a squeeze-box
When placed under pressure
It expanded its measure
Overcoming the new cellular blocks

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Links for this episode:

Avian influenza virus in harbor seals (mBio)
Poxvirus genomic accordions (Cell)
Red Queen hypothesis (Wikipedia)
Squeeze box (The Who)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 198

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Getting Better: 200 Years of Medicine
Rich – Khan Academy
Kathy – Vi Hart
Vincent – Tweet Keeper

Listener Pick of the Week

Diane – The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe
Stephen – Amateur Micrography

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected], or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss at microbeworld.org and tag them with twiv.

TWiV 197: Cloning HeLa cells with Professor Philip I Marcus

August 26, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Philip I. Marcus

Vincent travels to the University of Connecticut to meet up with Professor Philip I. Marcus to discuss his development of the single cell cloning technique in the early 1950s.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 197 (51 MB .mp3, 71 minutes).

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Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

Philip I. Marcus

TWiV 196: An arena for snakes

August 19, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Dickson Despommier, Kathy Spindler, Mark Stenglein, and Joseph DeRisi

The TWiVites meet with Mark Stenglein and Joseph DeRisi to discuss their discovery of a novel arenavirus in snakes with inclusion body disease.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 196 (77 MB .mp3, 107 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Highly divergent arenaviruses in snakes (mBio)
Taryn’s sick snake (NPR)
Assemblathon
Faculty position in virology, Columbia U.
Petridish.org
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 196

Weekly Science Picks

Mark – The Slow Mo Guys (Fly eats fly)
Dickson – I’m being eaten by a boa constrictor by Shel Silverstein
Alan – MMWR: First 30 years online
Rich – Giant python in Everglades and California Academy of Sciences
Kathy – Darwin finch genome sequence
Vincent – Microbiology at Mt. Sinai

Listener Pick of the Week

Renato – Security Now podcast
Robin – The Weather
Chad – Rare protozoan from sludge (ScienceDaily)

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 195: They did it in the hot tub

August 12, 2012

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

The complete TWiV team meets with Ken Stedman to discuss the discovery in Boiling Spring Lake of a DNA virus with the capsid of an RNA virus.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 195 (77 MB .mp3, 107 minutes).

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Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 194: Five postdocs in North America

August 5, 2012

Monona Terrace Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Matthew Daugherty, Jondavid deJong, Helen Lazear, Stefan Oliver, and Cara Pager.

Vincent returns to Madison, Wisconsin and meets with postdocs to discuss their science and their careers.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 194 (69 MB .mp3, 94 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 193: Live at ASV in Madison

July 29, 2012

ASV Madison 2012 Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Carolyn Coyne, and Sara Sawyer

Vincent, Rich, Carolyn, and Sara recorded TWiV at the 31st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Virology in Madison, where they discussed genetic conflict between viral and human genes, and how the placenta protects the fetus against viral infection.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 193 (56 MB .mp3, 78 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

ASV 2012 at Madison, WI
Photographs of ASV 2012
Rock band Herpetic Legion plays at ASV 2012
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 193

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
Vincent – Biochemistry Revealed

Listener Pick of the Week

Matlock – The BioDigital Human
Matt – Scientists create jellyfish from rat cells

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 192: Viral tertulia

July 22, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich answer listener email about bioinformatics, insects, influenza, laboratory classes, commensalism, reproducibility of data, and more.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 192 (84 MB .mp3, 117 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Vaccinia virus sequence from patient with vaccine complication (pdf)
The evolution of intellectual freedom (thanks, Robin!)
Free access to British scientific research (Guardian)
xTAG respiratory viral panel
Houston rabies case (Statesman)
Tertulia (Wikipedia)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 192

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – The Microbial Olympics (supplementary information)
Rich – PharmaJet needle free injection system
Vincent – Microbes and Evolution by Roberto Kolter and Stanley Maloy (paperback and Kindle)

Listener Pick of the Week

Varun – Agile Gene by Matt Ridley
Sizun – Plague Inc
Ricardo – TED-ED
Kristopher – Ed Yong on Econtalk

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected].

TWiV 191: When two rights make a wrong

July 15, 2012

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Nissin Moussatche

Nissin joins the TWiV crew to discuss an outbreak of lethal disease among Cambodian children, and recombination among attenuated herpesvirus vaccines leading to pathogenic viruses.