This Week in Virology

TWiV 489: CD4 Hunter

April 15, 2018

Vincent visits Sandra Urdaneta-Hartmann at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia to talk about the development of the mobile video game ‘CD4 Hunter’.

Host: Vincent Racaniello

Guest: Sandra Urdaneta-Hartmann

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Download TWiV 489 (40 MB .mp3, 66 min)
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Links for this episode

CD4 Hunter iOS Android
Sandra on Twitter
Carla Brown on Twitter
Inactivation of HIV in breast milk (Retrovirology)
Nipple shield to inactivate HIV (Int J Pharm)

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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

TWiV 488: Who nose if it will work in humans

April 8, 2018

The TWiV team reveals that recent mumps virus outbreaks in the US are due to waning vaccine efficacy, and an intranasally delivered small interfering RNA that controls West Nile infection in the brain.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

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Download TWiV 488 (62 MB .mp3, 102 min)
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Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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

TWiV 487: Milwaukee viral

April 1, 2018

At the Medical College of Wisconsin, Vincent talks with current and former members of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology about their work and their careers.

Host: Vincent Racaniello

Guests: Dominique Carter, Sid Grossberg, John Kirby, Scott Terhune, and Vera Tarakanova

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Download TWiV 487 (38 MB .mp3, 63 min)
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Intro music by Ronald Jenkees

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TWiV 486: Sean Whelan on being haploid

March 25, 2018

Sean Whelan returns to TWiV to speak with Vincent about using haploid cell lines to identify genes encoding cell receptors for viruses, including Ebolavirus, Lassa virus, and more.

Host: Vincent Racaniello

Guest: Sean Whelan

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Download TWiV 486 (39 MB .mp3, 63 min)
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Links for this episode

Ebola virus entry requires the cholesterol transporter Niemann-Pick C1 (Nature)
Lassa virus entry requires a trigger-induced receptor switch (Science)
Infectious Entry Pathway Mediated by the Human ERV K Envelope Protein (J Virol)
Novel Broad-Spectrum Virus Entry Inhibitor (J Virol)
Mechanism of membrane fusion induced by VSV G protein (PNAS)
NRP2 and CD63 Are Host Factors for Lujo Virus Cell Entry (Cell Host Micr)
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Intro music by Ronald Jenkees

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

TWiV 485: Fishing with defective flies

March 18, 2018

The TWiV posse considers viral insulin-like peptides encoded in fish genomes, and insect antiviral immunity by production of viral DNA from defective genomes of RNA viruses.

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

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Download TWiV 485 (52 MB .mp3, 86 min)
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Links for this episode

ASM Microbe 2018
Insulin-like peptides in Iridovirus genomes (PNAS)
Dicer-2 dependent generation of cvDNA from defective genomes (Cell Host Micr)
Carla Saleh on insect antiviral immunity (TWiV 301)
RNAseIII ancient antiviral RNA platform (TWiV 450)
cvDNA precursor to EVEs (TWiV 482)
Image credit: Paul Young
Letters read on TWiV 485

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – Vegas casinos lost money on physicists
Brianne – Astronaut twin’s DNA is not 7% different!
Dickson – Parasitic Diseases lecture videos
Alan – In Season blog by Donna Long
Vincent – Buckyball viruses

Listener Picks

Paul – Wine labels (front, back)

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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

TWiV 484: Float like a mimivirus STING like a bat

March 11, 2018

The TWiVumvirate discuss the giant Tupanvirus, with the longest tail in the known virosphere, and dampened STING dependent interferon activation in bats.

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

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Download TWiV 484 (53 MB .mp3, 87 min)
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Links for this episode

ASM Microbe 2018
Tailed giant Tupanvirus (Nat Commun)
Soda Lakes (Wikipedia)
Dampened STING in bats (Cell Host Microbe)
Image credit
Letters read on TWiV 484

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – How to read a phylogenetic tree
Brianne – No immune overload for vaccines
Dickson – Flowchart of viral families
Alan – Letters to a Pre-Scientist
Vincent – True believers, entrepreneurs, and scammers in alternative medicine and Simply Put: Vaccines Save Lives

Listener Picks

Vinayaka – Code of Ethics for Young Scientists
Matt – TWiV 443

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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

TWiV 483: Every infection is unhappy in its own way

March 4, 2018

Vincent and the Virals review undermining of antiviral effectiveness by genital inflammation, and heterogeneity of influenza virus infection in single cells.

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

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Download TWiV 483 (61 MB .mp3, 101 min)
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Links for this episode

USA Science and Engineering Festival
Genital inflammation and antiviral effectiveness (Nat Med)
Single cell infection heterogeneity (eLife)
Single-cell poliovirus infection (Virology)
Image credit
Letters read on TWiV 483

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – Dance Dance
Rich – Snopes
Alan – Next Generation Science Standards
Vincent – TWiEVO 28: Genetics of skin pigmentation in Africa

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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

TWiV 482: Don’t EVEome without antibody expressed

February 25, 2018

The TWiV Masters discuss serologic evidence of Ebolavirus infection in a population with no outbreaks, and the set of endogenous viral elements in the mosquito genome.

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

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Download TWiV 482 (59 MB .mp3, 98 min)
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Links for this episode

USA Science and Engineering Festival
Ebolavirus infection without an outbreak (J Inf Dis)
A. aegypti EVEome (Curr Biol)
One Loop to Rule Them All (Trends Biochem Sci)
Image credit
Letters read on TWiV 482

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – Origami sound barrier
Brianne – iBiology
Dickson – Switched-on bats
Alan – Hawaii’s communication breakdown
Vincent – Inside the Federal Bureau of way too many guns and What I Saw Treating Parkland Victims

Listener Pick

Johnye – Debunking Anti-Vaxxers

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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

TWiV 481: And biles to go before I delete

February 18, 2018

The TWiVodrome considers the intestinal tract as an alternative infection route for MERS coronavirus, and how reduced accumulation of defective viral RNAs might lead to severe influenza.