This Week in Virology

TWiV 773: Laurie Garrett, pandemic prophet

June 27, 2021

Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague, joins TWiV for a wide-ranging discussion of infectious disease and public health, including emerging infections, the role of wildlife markets in spillovers, and missteps in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker

Guest: Laurie Garrett

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Links for this episode

Lauriegarrett.com 00:58
The Coming Plague 10:22
Betrayal of Trust 20:39
Trump sabotaged coronavirus response (Foreign Policy) 1:11:09
ASV Vaccine Town Hall 1:45:16
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks 1:45:51

Brianne – A Pivotal Mosquito Experiment Could Not Have Gone Better
Kathy – Microbiology at the Movies
Vincent – When a Good Scientist Is the Wrong Source

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 772: COVID-19 clinical update #68 with Dr. Daniel Griffin

June 26, 2021

In COVID-19 clinical update #68, Daniel Griffin discusses children acquiring infection at birthday parties, immunogenicity of vaccines in solid organ transplant patients, reinfection rates in recovered patients, lack of efficacy of azithromycin, bacterial and fungal infections in hospitalized patients, effect of monoclonal antibody treatment on clinical outcomes of ambulatory patients, and reduction in mortality of hospitalized patients treated with remedesivir.

Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Vincent Racaniello

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Links for this episode

COVID-19 and birthday parties (JAMA) 6:46
Vaccines in transplant patients (Ann Int Med) 9:22
Reinfection of recovered patients (Clin Inf Dis) 13:00
Azithromycin lack of efficacy (Rev Med Virol) 15:27
Bacterial and fungal infections in hospitalized patients (Op For Inf Dis) 17:16
mAb treatment of ambulatory patients (Op For Inf Dis) 19:21
Remdesivir reduction of mortality (Gilead) 20:26
Letters read on TWiV 772 31:10
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your questions for Dr. Griffin to [email protected]

TWiV 771: Borna hundred million years ago

June 20, 2021

A TWiV trio reveals the 100 million year old history of bornavirus infections hidden as EVEs in vertebrate genomes, and identification of novel bat coronaviruses that provide evolutionary insight into the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Amy Rosenfeld

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Links for this episode

ASV Vaccine Town Hall 1:11
100 million year old bornavirus infections (PNAS) 5:22
Bornaviruses across geological timescales (PNAS) 6:41
Bornaviruses previously on TWiV 303, 347, 548 6:53, 9:51
Novel bat SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses (Cell) 31:49
Letters read on TWiV 771 1:01:52
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks 1:37:48

Amy – A relic from the Jurassic era
Alan – World of Wonders, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Vincent – Tom Buck’s YouTube Channel

Listener Pick

Victor – Vaccines: A measured response

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 770: COVID-19 clinical update #67 with Dr. Daniel Griffin

June 19, 2021

In COVID-19 clinical update #67, Daniel Griffin reviews antibodies to the virus early in the US, serology testing of blood donations, MIS-C in children under 21, myocarditis in competitive athletes, ER visits for suspected suicide attempts, delta variant in Scotland, Novavax vaccine phase 3 results, vaccine coverage in pregnant women, early monoclonal administration reduces hospitalization and mortality, casirivimab and imdevimab recovery trial results, and CDC guidance on postacute sequelae.

Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Vincent Racaniello

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38 MB .mp3, 39 min)
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Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your questions for Dr. Griffin to [email protected]

TWiV 769: MIS-C and leaky gut

June 17, 2021

On this episode of TWiV, Novavax COVID-19 vaccine demonstrates 90% overall efficacy, preventing an antigenically disruptive change during growth of influenza virus vaccine in chicken eggs, and MIS-C is driven by loss of the gut mucosal barrier.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker

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Links for this episode

ASV Vaccine Town Hall 1:23
Novavax vaccine efficacy reported (Novavax) 3:19
H3N2 glycosylation in eggs (TWiV 480) 10:46
Preventing antigenically disruptive HA change in eggs (Cell Host Micr) 9:06
MIS-C due to leaky gut (J Clin Invest) 36:07
Letters read on TWiV 769 1:13:46
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks 1:38:36

Brianne – Pandemics for Babies, Germ Theory for Babies, and Vaccines for Babies
Kathy – Playing with Time
Vincent – A Top Virologist in China, at Center of a Pandemic Storm, Speaks Out

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 768: Can nanobody stop these variants?

June 13, 2021

TWiV describes how human behavior, not increased transmissibility, led to increased spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant throughout Europe in summer 2020, and nanobodies from camelid mice and llamas that efficiently neutralize variants of concern.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, and Brianne Barker

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Download TWiV 768 (68 MB .mp3, 114 min)
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Links for this episode

ASV Vaccine Town Hall 2:05
Spread of SARS-CoV-2 variant in summer 2020 (Nature) 3:25
Nanobodies neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants (Nature) 40:00
Letters read on TWiV 768 1:11:12
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks 1:29:12

Dickson – Hotel Magdalena
Brianne – Antibody Song by Raven the Science Maven
Alan – How to play Magic: the Gathering
Vincent – Steve Gibson’s rant on Security Now

Listener Pick

David – Coronavirus set to music

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 767: COVID-19 clinical update #66 with Dr. Daniel Griffin

June 12, 2021

In COVID-19 clinical update #66, Daniel Griffin covers treatment guidelines from IDSA, hospitalization of adolescents, estimating epidemiological dynamics from viral load distributions, incidence of infection according to baseline antibody status, assessment of reinfection in Italy, need for vaccination in previously infected individuals, assessment of protection against reinfection, antimicrobial use in hospitalized patients, effect of single dose ivermectin, and a trial of aspirin in hospitalized patients.

Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Vincent Racaniello

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Download TWiV 767 (24 MB .mp3, 40 min)
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Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your questions for Dr. Griffin to [email protected]

TWiV 766: The CORONA project with David Fajgenbaum

June 10, 2021

David joins TWiV to relate how his near-death experience with Castleman’s disease motivated him to found the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory and the CORONA project to identify and track all treatments reported for COVID-19 in an open-source data repository.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Kathy Spindler, and Brianne Barker

Guest: David Fajgenbaum

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Links for this episode

CORONA project 18:58, 46:32
Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory 1:54, 20:29
Castleman Disease Collaborative Network 2:10, 5:41, 8:52
Chasing My Cure 2:51, 5:15
Letters read on TWiV 766 1:01:39
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks 1:19:28

Brianne – How Giraffes Beat High Blood Pressure
Kathy – Orangutan optical illusion
Vincent – Two quotes from Chasing My Cure by David Fajgenbaum

John Paul II: Dear young people, whether you are believers or not, accept the call to be virtuous. This means being strong within, having a big heart, being rich in the highest sentiments, bold in the truth, courageous in freedom, constant in responsibility, generous in love, invincible in hope.

David: Never stop questioning and always follow the data.

Listener Picks

Greg – Stewart Lee on Loch Ness monster

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 765: Potpourri of COVID-19

June 6, 2021

TWiV reviews the new nomenclature for SARS-CoV-2 variants, effectiveness of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against variants, modified Moderna vaccine against variants, impact of COVID-19 interventions on influenza in China and the US, and binding of RaTG13 spike protein to ACE2 of multiple species.

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

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Links for this episode

Updated nomenclature of SARS-CoV-2 variants (WHO) 3:35
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine effective against alpha variants (Lancet) 17:34
Novavax vaccine effective against beta variants (NEJM) 23:28
Moderna updated vaccine against beta and gamma variants (medRxiv) 31:11
Impact of COVID-19 interventions against influenza (Nat Comm) 44:10
RaTG13 spike binding to various ACE2 proteins (Cell) 1:03:14
Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Weekly Picks 1:33:28

Dickson – NASA’s Juno to Get a Close Look at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede
Brianne – Send in the Bugs. The Michelangelos Need Cleaning.
Rich – All landers and rovers on Mars animated in video with human scale
Alan – Weird case cluster reported in MMWR 40 years ago; update on disease
Vincent – Virus isolates, strains, variants – what are they?

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 764: COVID-19 clinical update #65 with Dr. Daniel Griffin

June 5, 2021

In COVID-19 clinical update #65, Daniel Griffin summarizes effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions, updated summer camp guidance from CDC, serology testing not recommended by FDA, antigen tests during a music event, inhibition of vaccine immunogenicity by methotrexate, phase 3 trial results for colchicine, and small airway disease as a post-acute sequelae.