The biggest known viruses are Mimivirus (750 nanometer capsid, 1.2 million base pair DNA) and Megavirus (680 nanometer capsid, 1.3 million base pair DNA). These giant viruses have all been isolated from environmental samples, and many infect amoebae. A new Mimivirus has now been isolated from a human patient with pneumonia. To search for giant …
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a summary of notifiable diseases in the US for the year 2011. These statistics are collected and compiled from reports sent by state health departments and territories to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS). According to the CDC, a notifiable disease is one for which …
Margaret K. Offermann, MD, PhD, President of FASEB, sent the following email: The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to consider the Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) bill that will provide fiscal year (FY) 2014 funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Although we don’t know when the House Appropriations Committee will vote on NIH …
On episode #240 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent travels to the University of Vermont to talk with Markus and Jason about their work on HIV, influenza virus, arenaviruses and hantaviruses. You can find TWiV #240 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
The mucosal membranes that line our respiratory, alimentary, and urogenital tracts and the outer surface of the eyes are portals of entry for microbes. The cells at these surfaces have functions that require that they are exposed to the environment – for example, gaseous exchange in the lung between inspired air and the blood. Mucus, …
