Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Welkin Johnson
Vincent, Alan, and Welkin discuss how endogenous retroviruses in mice are held in check by the immune response.
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Download TWiV 218 (64 MB .mp3, 89 min)
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Links for this episode:
- Kuan-Teh Jeang, 54
- Resurrection of ERVs (Nature)
- Toll-like receptors control ERVs (Immunity)
- Retroviral danger from within (Immunity)
- Ancient viruses wreak havoc (The Scientist)
- Letters read on TWiV 218
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Welkin – Viruses: Essential Agents of Life (review at STC)
Alan – Infinity Imagined
Vincent – Spaceship built for son
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Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tv
Unfortunatly Welkins Pick costs about 170 euros in Europe…sad. Sounds like a very interisting read.
Re viral infection through the eye – I’m pretty sure that there has been an cluster of conjunctivitis caused by adenovirus infection in shipyards in the US. Apparently, the shipyard workers used to get shards of metal in their eyes pretty frequently. When that happened, they would go to see the guy who was the best at pulling out the small fragments of steel with his pliers. Unfortunately, the set of pliers he used got contaminated with adenovirus, and so this practice caused a small epidemic of conjunctivitis.
Moral of the story – medical equipment needs to be sterile, and always wear eye protection when using machine tools.
Source – Collier and Oxford’s Human Virology, IIRC.