This Week in Virology

TWiV 494: Ebola Makona is the opposite of hakuna matata

May 20, 2018

Vincent, Kathy, and Alan review the ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the finding that mutations identified in the 2015 West African epidemic do not alter pathogenesis in animals.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler

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Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

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TWiV 493: Condit is on drugs and norovirus is lit

May 13, 2018

The TWiVerati discuss the FDA Advisory Committee deliberation on the anti-poxvirus drug tecovirimat, and immune cells in gut-associated lymphoid tissue as the major target during acute murine norovirus infection.

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

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Links for this episode

ASM Microbe 2018
Support Viruses & Cells Gordon Conference
Faculty positions at Icahn School of Medicine
FDA meeting materials for tecovirimat (FDA)
SIGA Briefing Information (pdf)
Errata to the SIGA Briefing Information (pdf)
Gut immune cells major targets of norovirus infection (Nat Micro)
RNAscope (J Mol Diag)
Image credit
Letters read on TWiV 493

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Personal Finance for PhDs by Emily Roberts
Kathy – Optical illusions fool artificial intelligence
Rich – 2017-2018 snowfall graphic
Dickson – Dust from the Sahara
Vincent – The Last Days of Smallpox by Mark Pallen

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 492: CRISPR diagnostics

May 6, 2018

The Masters of the TWiXome review the development of sensitive, portable, and field-based viral diagnostics using the CRISPR-Cas system.

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

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Download TWiV 492 (66 MB .mp3, 109 min)
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Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Decline of local newspapers leaves epidemiologists blind
Kathy – Journal oversight, mental health research
Rich – The Big Sort: An Insider’s Tour of a Recycling Plant
Dickson – When Science Meets Art
Vincent – A Crack in Creation by Doudna and Sternberg

Listener Pick

Tom – Trillions Upon Trillions of Viruses Fall From the Sky Each Day

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 491: The Ileum and the Odyssey

April 29, 2018

The TWiVome deconstructs the evolutionary history of RNA viruses, and immune promotion of murine norovirus pathogenesis by replication in intestinal tuft cells.

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

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Download TWiV 491 (59 MB .mp3, 97 min)
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Links for this episode

ASM Microbe 2018
Support Viruses & Cells Gordon Conference
Faculty positions at Icahn School of Medicine
Evolutionary history of RNA viruses (Nature)
The amphioxus song
Norovirus tropism for tuft cells (Science)
Letters read on TWiV 491

Weekly Science Picks

Alan – Oligodendroglioma in song
Kathy – Everything-repellent coating to grime proof phone screens & more
Rich – Gaia star map
Dickson – Clouds are complicated
Vincent – Eradicating polio with a vaccine we must stop using

Listener Pick

Stephen – Forget the Avengers, it took real heroes to make India polio-free

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiV 490: Shave ice and giant viruses

April 22, 2018

From the TWiV team, human cowpox infection possibly acquired from a pet cat, and a new giant mimivirus of green algae with genes encoding enzymes of fermentation.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler

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Download TWiV 490 (59 MB .mp3, 97 min)
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Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – Landscapes that look like another world (but they are from Spain)
Rich – Brighton Collaboration; Viral Vector Vaccines Safety Working Group (V3SWG) (Chen & DeStefano: Vaccine adverse events: causal or coincidental?)
Dickson – Clouds of Jupiter and EBNA2 and autoimmunity
Vincent – More than one-third of graduate students report being depressed (original article)

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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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Links for this episode

ASM Microbe 2018
ASV 2018
Microbiology Student Symposium at UC Berkeley
Support Viruses & Cells Gordon Conference
Waning mumps vaccine in US (Sci Trans Med)
siRNA control of West Nile virus brain infection (Cell Host Microbe)
Image credit
Letters read on TWiV 488

Weekly Science Picks

Kathy – Peak bloom and photographing cherry blossoms
Dickson – Origins of vertebrate RNA viruses
Alan – Rare footage of anglerfish in the deep ocean
Vincent – NIH must reduce disparities in funding

Listener Picks

Mariann – Eden Project and Bellyvision Apparatus and the Like
Amir – Winners of ICR Science Photography and Photography Contest

Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees.

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

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

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

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)
Image credit

Intro music by Ronald Jenkees

Send your virology questions and comments to [email protected]

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.