Trudy joins the the TWiVlords to discuss new tests for detecting prions in the blood, and evidence showing that foamy retroviruses originated in the seas with their jawed vertebrate hosts at least 450 million years ago.
Ted and Welkin inform the TWiV team how the evolution of ancient retroviruses can be inferred by their sequences in the genomes of modern mammals, and join in a discussion of virus dispersal during different methods for drying hands.
Nels and Ed join the TWiV team to talk about their observation that regulation of the human interferon response depends on regulatory sequences that were co-opted millions of years ago from endogenous retroviruses.
Vincent visits the University of Michigan where he and Kathy speak with Michael, Adam, and Akira about polyomaviruses, virus evolution, and virus assembly, on the occasion of naming the department of Microbiology & Immunology a Milestones in Microbiology site.
Vincent meets up with Michael and Steve to discuss their finding of a transmissible tumor in soft shell clams associated with a retrovirus-like element in the clam genome.
Vincent speaks with John Coffin about his career studying retroviruses, including working with Howard Temin, endogenous retroviruses, XMRV, chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer, HIV/AIDS, and his interest in growing cranberries.
Vincent and Glenn meet up with Ann and talk about her long and productive career in virology, from biochemistry to bacteriophage lambda to retroviruses.
The complete TWiV team talks about how two different viruses shape the evolution of an essential housekeeping protein.
Vincent, Alan, Dickson, and Kathy discuss how the innate immune response to viral infection influences the production of pluripotent stem cells, and the diverse mobilome of giant viruses.
Vincent and Ian review a multicenter blinded analysis which finds no association between chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis and XMRV or polytropic murine leukemia virus.
The Hosts of TWiV
Vincent Racaniello, Ph.D.
Dickson D.
Despommier, Ph.D.
Alan Dove, Ph.D.
Daniel Griffin, M.D.,
Ph.D., CTropMed CTH
Jolene Ramsey, Ph.D.