TWiV 116: Cocaine, colonies, and chickens

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

On episode #116 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Dickson, Alan, and Rich review an adenovirus-based vaccine strategy against drug addiction, a field trial of RNAi to prevent Israeli acute paralysis virus infection in honeybees, and suppression of avian influenza transmission in transgenic chickens.

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Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #116 (64 MB .mp3, 89 minutes).

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Links for this episode:

• Cocaine analog coupled to disrupted adenovirus
• Field application of RNAi in honeybees
• Suppression of avian influenza transmission in GM chickens (EurekAlert)
• Phage tailspike protein therapy
• Use of phage lysins to treat bacterial infections (one and two)
• Cell to cell spread of viruses (review and inhibition by tetherin)
• Flock house virus replication organelle (thanks Brett!)
• TWiV on Facebook
• Letters read on TWiV 116

Weekly Science Picks

Dickson – Brian Deer’s investigation of the Wakefield and MMR vaccine
Rich – Photographic periodic table of the elements
Alan – Year of the bat (site one and site two)
Vincent – EteRNA (NY Times article)

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tv. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss at microbeworld.org and tag them with twiv.