The fatality rate for human infections with avian influenza H5N1 is widely quoted at >50%, based on the number of deaths among the fewer than 600 cases confirmed by the World Health Organization. Wang, Parides, and Palese suggest that this number is an overestimate: …the stringent criteria for confirmation of a human case of H5N1 …
Evidence for influenza H5N1 infections in humans Read More »
For the second time in a week I note the passing of an important virologist. Renato Dulbecco, together with David Baltimore and Howard Temin, received the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries about how tumor viruses interact with the genetic material of the cell. Dulbecco also devised my favorite virological method, the plaque …
On episode #171 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Matt Frieman joins Vincent, Alan, and Dickson to review virus production in single cells and single virion genomics. You can find TWiV #171 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
Dr. Bruce Alberts, editor of Science magazine, said that the journal will publish the full version of the Fouchier H5N1 influenza virus paper if mechanisms are not developed to ensure circulation of the information to scientists. Alberts made his comments at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver: Our position is …
Norton Zinder made two important discoveries in the field of virology. While a Ph.D. student with Joshua Lederberg at the University of Wisconsin-Madison he found that viruses of bacteria (bacteriophages) could move genes from one host to another, a process called transduction. Later in his own laboratory at The Rockefeller University he isolated the first …
On This Week in Virology #170, hosts Alan, Rich, and Dickson discuss Edward Jenner’s paper on cowpox vaccine, then move 200 years later to modern vaccines against norovirus, influenza H5N1, and more. You can find TWiV #170 at www.microbe.tv/twiv
