Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and James Van Etten Guests: Chantal Abergel and Jean-Michel Claverie Vincent meets up with Chantal and Jean-Michel at the first International Symposium on Giant Virus Biology in Tegernsee, Germany, to discuss their work on Mimivirus,…

Vincent, Alan, and Rich answer listener questions about lab procedures, prokaryotes, endogenous retroviruses, the iPad and teaching, prions, mimivirus, splitting water with viruses, and the polio outbreak in Tajikistan.

Vincent, Alan, and Rich revisit circovirus contamination of Rotarix, then discuss poxvirus-like replication of mimivirus in the cell cytoplasm, and whether seasonal influenza immunization increases the risk of infection with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus.

Vincent, Alan, and Rich talk about US government contract for freeze-dried smallpox vaccine, red squirrels in the UK threatened by poxvirus, and Marseillevirus, another DNA virus from amoebae built for comfort and speed.

Vincent, Alan, and Raul Rabadan converse about polio survivors in iron lungs, bocavirus, structure of mimivirus, and genome sequence analysis of influenza H1N1 viruses.