A new class is starting at virology blog: Virology 101. I began this blog in 2004, to give back what I’ve learned from studying viruses for 30+ years. I’ve written many posts on basic virology, but they tend to disappear with time. To remedy this problem, I’ve collected all these posts with links back to …
Although many viruses are classified into individual families based on a variety of physical and biological criteria, they may also be placed in groups according to the type of genome in the virion. Over 30 years ago virologist David Baltimore devised an alternative classification scheme that takes into account the nature of the viral nucleic …
Simplifying virus classification: The Baltimore system Read More »
Recently while driving north on the New York State Thruway I passed the exit for the town of Coxsackie, NY (population 8,884). I grabbed my camera and photographed the exit sign, and reminded myself to write about the virus named after this small town. In the summer of 1947 there were several small outbreaks of …
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dick Despommier, Alan Dove, and Jennifer Drahos In episode #44 of the podcast “This Week in Virology”, Vincent, Dick, Alan, and Jennifer Drahos consider Marburg virus in Egyptian fruit bats, bacterial citrus pathogen found in shipping facility, canine parvovirus in Michigan, Relenza-resistant influenza virus, new HIV from gorillas, and public engagement on …
For the first 60 years of virus discovery, there was no system for classifying viruses. Consequently viruses were named haphazardly, a practice that continues today. Vertebrate viruses may be named according to the associated diseases (poliovirus, rabies), the type of disease caused (murine leukemia virus), or the sites in the body affected or from which …
Marburg virus has been isolated from Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) living in Kitaka Cave, Uganda, demonstrating that bats are a natural reservoir of the virus. Marburg virus, the founding member of the Filoviridae, is an enveloped virus with a negative-strand RNA genome. Other members of the filovirus family are the five species of ebolavirus. Filoviruses …
