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. [powerpress url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV116.mp3″] Click the …
Multiplicity of infection (MOI) is a frequently used term in virology which refers to the number of virions that are added per cell during infection. If one million virions are added to one million cells, the MOI is one. If ten million virions are added, the MOI is ten. Add 100,000 virions, and the MOI …
Organic chemist Derek Lowe writes about XMRV at his blog, In the Pipeline: …this isn’t looking good at all. It’s pretty typical, though, of how things are out at the frontiers in this business. There are always more variables than you think, and more reasons to be wrong than you’ve counted. A theory doesn’t hold …
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Marc Pelletier On episode #115 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, Rich and Marc discuss the finding that a limited number of incoming herpesviral genomes can replicate and express in a cell, and controlling viral replication in Aedes aegypti with a Wolbachia symbiont. [powerpress url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV115.mp3″] Click the …
Derek Smith, Professor of Infectious Disease Informatics, University of Cambridge, U.K., has developed a method for visualizing antigenic evolution by creating two-dimensional maps in a process called antigenic cartography. These maps are made with data that provide information on the antigenic properties of the pathogen. In the case of influenza virus, the data come from …
A strong argument that the novel human retrovirus XMRV is not a laboratory contaminant is the finding that viral DNA is integrated in chromosomal DNA of prostate tumors. Why does this result constitute such strong proof of viral infection? Establishment of an integrated copy of the viral genome – the provirus – is a critical …
