On this episode of TWiV, the observation that the 1918 influenza virus is not lethal in nonhuman primates and implications for studies on viral virulence, and mRNA vaccines that control and resolve human papillomavirus-associated cancers in mice.

A TWiV threesome explains the observation that humans with inherited T cell CD28 deficiency are susceptible to severe warts driven by human papilloma virus infection, but are otherwise healthy.

The TWiV team notes the passing of Tom Steitz, an outbreak of acute flaccid myelitis in the US, a continuing Ebola virus outbreak in DRC, respiratory vaccinia due to inhalation of ground up rabbit skin, and how a human papillomavirus capsid protein directs virus-containing endosomes towards the nucleus.

In the first of two shows recorded at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Vincent meets up with faculty members to talk about how they got started in science, their research on DNA viruses, and what they would be doing if they were not scientists.

Vincent and guests Rachel Katzenellenbogen, Roger Hendrix, and Harmit Malik recorded TWiV #135 live at the 2011 ASM General Meeting in New Orleans, where they discussed transformation and oncogenesis by human papillomaviruses, the amazing collection of bacteriophages on the planet, and the evolution of genetic conflict between virus and host.