This Week in Virology

TWiV 163: What Rous wrought

December 25, 2011

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

Vincent, Dickson, Rich, and Alan review the 100 year old finding by Peyton Rous of a transmissible sarcoma of chickens, a discovery that ushered in the era of tumor virology.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 163 (61 MB .mp3, 102 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Transmissible sarcoma of the fowl (J Exp Med)
Sarcoma of fowl transmissible by agent separable from tumor cells (J Exp Med)
100 years of Rous sarcoma virus (J Exp Med)
Early history of tumor virology (PNAS)
Ralph Nader recommends The Vertical Farm
Propose an ASM General Meeting session
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 163

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
Alan – Comet rise
Vincent – TWiV iPhone case

Listener Pick of the Week

Ronnie – How fungi celebrate Christmas
Kevin – EcoCyc app
Gabriel – ImmGen app

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

TWiV 162: Transcription

December 18, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Alan Dove

Vincent, Rich, and Alan continue Virology 101 with a discussion of transcription, the process of making mRNA from a DNA template.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 162 (56 MB .mp3, 93 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Slides for this episode (pdf)
Propose an ASM General Meeting session
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 162
Video of this episode – view above or at YouTube

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – 3D vaccinia virion
Alan – Happy Holidays from NOAA (YouTube)
Vincent – 17 year old wins $100,000 science prize

Listener Pick of the Week

Sarah – Critical Thinking (pdf), diagnosing respiratory infections by gene signature (Cell Host Micro), and One Health Initiative (CDC page)

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

transcription

TWiV 161: Concerto in B

December 11, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove , and Gabriel Victora

Vincent, Rich, Alan and Gabriel review the production of antibodies by B cells, and how high affinity antibodies are selected in the germinal centers of lymph nodes.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 161 (71 MB .mp3, 118 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

An antibody molecule (png)
Antibodies (virology blog)
Germinal center dynamics revealed by two photon microscopy (Cell)
Two photon microscopy (Wikipedia)
Gabriel Victora on piano (YouTube)
Propose an ASM General Meeting session
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 161

Weekly Science Picks

Gabriel – Antibody-based protection against HIV (Nature)
Rich – Contact
Alan – Flu shot dystonia (YouTube)
Vincent – Sciflies and RocketHub

Listener Pick of the Week

Neva – Virus and retrovirus
Ayesha – The Life Scientific (BBC)

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

TWiV 160: Moore tumor viruses

December 4, 2011

merkel carcinoma Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove , Dickson Despommier, and Patrick Moore

The TWiV team speaks with Patrick Moore about his discovery, with Yuan Chang, of two human tumor viruses, Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus and Merkel cell polyomavirus.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 160 (66 MB .mp3, 109 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Chang-Moore laboratory at University of Pittsburgh
Representational difference analysis (Science)
KSHV: Forgotten but not gone (Blood)
Why do viruses cause cancer? (Nat Rev Cancer)
Merkel cell carcinoma review (Ann Rev)
Clonal integration of a polyomavirus in Merkel carcinoma (Science)
T antigen mutations in Merkel polyomavirus (PNAS)
Merkel polyomavirus small t is an oncoprotein (J Clin Inves)
Suggest a topic for the 2012 ASM General Meeting
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 160

Weekly Science Picks

Patrick – The Theory That Would Not Die by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Dickson – Foodborne illness acquired in the US (Emerging Inf Dis)
Rich – GATTACA
Alan – Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Vincent – Boxwave capacitative stylus

Listener Pick of the Week

Neva – 10+1 top science apps
Ricardo – Where’s the outrage?

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

TWiV 159: Flu gets the REDD light

November 27, 2011

ferret Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich review concern over an influenza H5N1 transmission experiment, and a new host defense protein against RNA viruses.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 159 (48 MB .mp3, 80 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Concern over H5N1 transmission experiment (CIDRAP)
Information on NSABB
Enserink’s overstated story (Science)
New cell defense protein against RNA viruses (Nature Chem Biol)
Uta Schwedler obituary (jpg)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 159

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – Livescribe Smartpen
Alan – Royal Society journal archive
Vincent – Chronic fatigue syndrome and the CDC by Dave Tuller

Listener Pick of the Week

Judi – Top 7 in Microbiology

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

TWiV 158: Wolverines go viral

November 20, 2011

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alice Telesnitsky, and Kathy Spindler

Vincent and Rich visit the Microbiology and Immunology Department at the University of Michigan Medical School, and speak with Alice and Kathy about their work on HIV genome dimerization, and packaging and pathogenesis of mouse adenovirus.

Model of poliovirus bound to CD155 made by Stefan Taube.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 158 (52 MB .mp3, 87 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

Mouse adenovirus infection of macrophages (Virology)
Breakdown of blood-brain barrier by mouse adenovirus (J Virol)
Major locus for mouse adenovirus susceptibility (J Immunol)
Structures in HIV 5′-end that regulate genome packaging (Science)
Packaging of host RNAs by murine leukemia virus (J Virol)
What, how, when, where, and why of retroviral genome dimerization and packaging (PLoS Path)
Virologist replaces Steve Jobs at Apple
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 158

Weekly Science Picks

Alice – Banvard’s Folly by Paul S. Collins
Kathy – The world at seven billion
Rich – The Princess Bride
Vincent – Center for the history of microbiology

Listener Pick of the Week

Tim – Dead Ends to Somewhere by Richard L. Ward
Don – Ben Goldacre: Battling bad science (TED)

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

TWiV 157: Better innate than never

November 13, 2011

dendritic cell Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, Alan Dove, Dickson Despommier, Jeremy Luban, and Gabriel Victora

A large TWiV panel remembers Ralph Steinman, and considers a new innate sensor of retroviral capsids.

Photograph of a dendritic cell (green) interacting with T cells (cyan) near a blood vessel by Gabriel Victora.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 157 (90 MB .mp3, 125 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

HG Khorana obituary
DC discovery: four seminal papers (one, two, three, four)
Ralph Steinman videos from Lasker Award
TRIM5 is an innate immune retroviral sensor (Nature)
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 157

Weekly Science Picks

Dickson – Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
Rich – Battlestar Galactica
Alan – Coleman LED quad lantern
Gabriel – A History of Immunology by Arthur M. Silverstein
Jeremy – Principles of Virology by Flint, Enquist, Racaniello, Skalka
Vincent – Principles of Molecular Virology by AJ Cann

Listener Pick of the Week

David – Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot (YouTube)

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

TWiV 156: Armed and targeted killer meta-analysis

November 6, 2011

jx-594 Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Dickson Despommier

Vincent, Rich, and Dickson review a meta-analysis on influenza vaccine, a killer virus in fungi that selects against RNAi, and the use of armed and targeted poxviruses for oncolytic virotherapy.

Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV 156 (57 MB .mp3, 94 minutes).

Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email

Links for this episode:

Efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccine (Lancet)
Flu vaccine not as effective as thought (MPRNews)
Blog posts on flu vaccine meta-analysis (virology blog, alandove, viva)
Killer virus explains RNAi deficient fungi (Science)
Poxvirus-based oncotherapy (Nature)
Jennerex
TWiV on Facebook
Letters read on TWiV 156

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – Google’s self-driving car (story one and two)
Dickson – Wild Russia and Wild China TV series
Vincent – Baculovirus molecular biology by George Rohrmann (free)

Listener Pick of the Week

Jim – Lee Cronin: Making matter come alive (TED)

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

TWiV 155: XXII Brazilian National Virology Meeting

October 30, 2011

sbv_logoenv2011 Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Grant McFadden, Eurico de Arruda Neto, Paulo Eduardo Brandão, Francisco Murilo Zerbini, and Janice Reis Ciacci Zanella

Vincent, Grant, Eurico, Paulo, Francisco and Janice discuss their work on bocavirus, infectious bronchitis virus, begomoviruses, and circoviruses at the Brazilian Virology Society meeting in Atibaia, São Paulo, Brazil.